Effect of Controlled Breathing on Heart Rate Variability in Newly Diagnosed Hypertensive Individuals

Hypertension represents a multifactorial disease of blood pressure (BP) regulation with

persistently elevated systolic and/or diastolic BP over 140/90mmHg. Autonomic dysfunction and metabolic disorders lead to Hypertension. The Heart Rate Variability Analysis (HRV) is a powerful tool in the assessment of the cardiac autonomic nerve function. It is a non-invasive, reliable, reproducible procedure, simple to measure and process and is indicative of the autonomic status of an individual.

1. To assess the Cardiovascular Autonomic Function in Newly diagnosed Hypertensive individuals using HRV as a tool. 2. To study the effect of one minute controlled deep breathing on HRV among newly diagnosed hypertensives.

A cross-sectional study was conducted on 30 newly diagnosed primary hypertension subjects and 30 age matched healthy controls of age between 35–50 years. The study was conducted after getting Institutional Ethical Committee clearance and Informed Written Consent from all the participants. RMS Polyrite D Hardware 2.2 system was used to assess the autonomic status of the subjects.

The results obtained were statistically analyzed using SPSS software version 21.0. The mean values of all the time domain parameters were found to be significantly reduced in hypertensives when compared with the controls. In frequency domain analysis LF/HF was significantly increased in hypertension subjects. A significant increase (p<0.05)in time domain parameters was seen in hypertensive subjects after one minute controlled deep breathing. The LF/HF was also reduced following controlled deep breathing.

Autonomic dysfunction may contribute to the development of many cardiovascular complications in Hypertension, which can be detected by HRV. Reduced HRV after controlled breathing in hypertensives signifies the role of Life style modifications like Yoga, meditation and exercise in reducing the Cardiovascular risk.