The Association between Stressful Life Event and Resting Heart Rate in Korean Adults

Abstract

Objectives: Stress is associated with various cardiovascular conditions. However the direct association between stressful life events and resting heart rate has not been fully studied. Thus, we evaluated the association of stressful life events and resting heart rate in Korean adults.Methods: We performed cross-sectional analysis of baseline data of 1703 males and 2730 females (aged 27 to 87) who participated in baseline examinations of the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study- Kanghwa study. We measured both objective stress and perceived stress by Korean version of life experience survey questionnaire. Heart rate and blood pressure were measured twice with at least 5 minutes intervals using an automatic sphygmomanometer and if the difference between the first and second measurement was more than 10 mmHg, repeated measurements were done. The average of the last two measurements was used for analysis. The association between life events and heart rate was assessed using ß coefficient by multiple linear regressions.Results: According to the number of stressful life events from 0 to 1, 2, and 3 or more, means of resting heart rate decreased from 67.30 ± 9.99 bpm to 64.65 ± 10.09 bpm (β=-1.655, p=0.002), 63.73 ± 9.13 bpm (β=-3.568, p<0.001), and 64.17 ± 9.39 bpm (β=-3.133, p<0.001), respectively. After the adjustment for age, body mass index, hypertension treatment, oral contraceptive use (only in female), postmenopausal hormone therapy (only in female), past medical history of thyroid disease, past medical history of liver disease, cigarette smoking, alcohol drinking, and blood urea nitrogen creatinine ratio, this association was remained (β= -1.485, -3.718, -3.176 and p=0.005, <0.001, <0.001, respectively).Conclusions: Our findings suggest that stressful life events had association with low resting heart rate.