NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – New research suggests that an excessive increase in heart rate prior to engaging in an exercise test — a situation of mild mental stress — identifies people who are at increased risk of sudden cardiac death later in life.

“These findings may carry significant clinical implications,” Dr. Xavier Jouven, from Hopital Europeen Georges Pompidou, Paris, said in a statement. “Few measurements in medicine are as inexpensive and as easy to obtain in large general populations as to measure the heart rate difference between resting and being ready to perform an exercise test.”

The findings, reported in the European Heart Journal for May, are based on an analysis of data for 7746 male civil servants who were followed for 23 years as part of the Paris Prospective Study 1. The heart rate at rest was compared with that obtained just prior to a bicycling exercise test while the subjects were sitting on the bike, but had not yet begun to peddle.

On average, the heart rate rose by 8.9 beats per minute from rest to pre-exercise status.

During follow-up, 1516 subjects died, including 81 from sudden cardiac death, the authors report.

Compared with subjects who experienced heart rate change of less than 4 beats per minutes, those with a change of greater than 12 beats per minute were 2.09-times more likely to experience sudden cardiac death later in life.

By contrast, the heart rate change did not predict death from other causes.

The authors believe that heart rate testing as performed in the current study could be useful in stratifying people into risk categories for sudden cardiac death.

Reference:
Eur Heart J 2009.