Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jan 5;19(1):566.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19010566.

Anthropometric Determinants of Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia in Children

Paulina Lubocka  1 , Robert Sabiniewicz  1 , Klaudia Suligowska  2   3 , Tomasz Zdrojewski  2
Affiliations

Anthropometric Determinants of Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia in Children

Paulina Lubocka et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: The study was conducted to investigate the implications of anthropometry in school-aged children on the degree of respiratory sinus arrhythmia observed in clinical settings.

Methods: In a cohort study, 626 healthy children (52% male) aged 10.8 ± 0.5 years attending primary school in a single town underwent a 12-lead electrocardiogram coupled with measurements of height, weight and blood pressure. Indices of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (pvRSA, RMSSD, RMSSDc) were derived from semi-automatic measurements of RR intervals. Height, weight, BMI, blood pressure as well as waist and hip circumferences were compared between subjects with rhythmic heart rate and respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and correlations between indices of sinus arrhythmia and anthropometry were investigated.

Results: Respiratory sinus arrhythmia was recognized in 43% of the participants. Subjects with sinus arrhythmia had lower heart rate (p < 0.001), weight (p = 0.009), BMI (p = 0.005) and systolic (p = 0.018) and diastolic (p = 0.004) blood pressure. There were important inverse correlations of heart rate and indices of sinus arrhythmia (r = -0.52 for pvRSA and r = -0.58 for RMSSD), but not the anthropometry.

Conclusion: Lower prevalence of respiratory sinus arrhythmia among children with overweight and obesity is a result of higher resting heart rate observed in this population.

Keywords: cardiology; electrocardiography; human development; physiology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

References

    1. Brunetto A.F., Roseguini B.T., Silva B.M., Hirai D.M., Guedes D.P. Effects of gender and aerobic fitness on cardiac autonomic responses to head-up tilt in healthy adolescents. Pediatr. Cardiol. 2005;26:418–424. doi: 10.1007/s00246-004-0808-0. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Nagai N., Hamada T., Kimura T., Moritani T. Moderate physical exercise increases cardiac autonomic nervous system activity in children with low heart rate variability. Child’s Nerv. Syst. 2004;20:209–214. - PubMed
    1. Radtke T., Khattab K., Brugger N., Eser P., Saner H., Wilhelm M. High-volume sports club participation and autonomic nervous system activity in children. Eur. J. Clin. Investig. 2013;43:821–828. doi: 10.1111/eci.12112. - DOI - PubMed
    1. El-Sheikh M., Hinnant J.B. Marital conflict; respiratory sinus arrhythmia; and allostatic load: Interrelations and associations with the development of children’s externalizing behavior. Dev. Psychopathol. 2011;23:815–829. doi: 10.1017/S0954579411000320. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Xie G.L., Wang J.-H., Zhou Y., Xu H., Sun J.H., Yang S.R. Association of High Blood Pressure with Heart Rate Variability in Children. [(accessed on 20 December 2021)];Iran. J. Pediatr. 2013 23:37–44. Available online: http://ijp.tums.ac.ir. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources