Heart rate rise before exercise test telling: study

Heart rate rise before exercise test telling: study
SOURCE: European Heart Journal, May 2009.

Published May 20, 2009
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - An excessive increase in heart rate prior to engaging in an exercise test -- a situation that causes mild mental stress -- identifies people who are at increased risk of dying suddenly later in life, a new study suggests.
These findings may carry "significant" implications, Dr. Xavier Jouven, from Hopital Europeen Georges Pompidou, Paris, said in a statement, explaining that taking a patient's pulse may be a simple way to identify people who may be at increased risk of sudden heart attack.
The study involved 7746 French male civil servants who were given health examinations between 1967 and 1972 when they were between 42 and 53 years old. During 23 years of follow-up, 1516 of the men died, including 81 who suffered a sudden fatal heart attack.
As part of the study, 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 pedal.
Results showed that men whose heart rate increased the most during mild mental stress, just before the exercise test, had twice the risk of dying of a sudden heart attack in later life than men whose heart rate did not increase as much. By contrast, the heart rate change did not predict death from other causes.
The findings are reported in the European Heart Journal for May.
Sudden death from heart attack is a major public health problem, accounting for between 200,000-400,000 deaths each year in the United States alone, the investigators note.
Jouven and colleagues believe that heart rate testing as performed in the current study could be useful in stratifying people into risk categories for sudden heart attack.
SOURCE: European Heart Journal, May 2009.