Effect of Age and Gender on Correlation between Body Mass Index and Heart Rate among Hypertensive Patients
Author(s): Wajahat Ali, Zia Ullah Khan, Sana Bilal, Sadia Siddiqui, Ahsan Ali Siddiqui and Adnan Anwar*
Abstract
Objective: Fatness is one of the main causes of mortality with elevated body mass index (BMI), especially from cardiovascular disease (CVD). Impaired or abnormal functioning of the autonomic nervous system has been involved in the progression of hypertension. Heart rate variability quantitatively evaluates cardiac autonomic disorder that is used to record reduced cardiac autonomic commotion in high blood pressurewith an age and gender. Our objective is to determine the effect of age and gender on correlation between body mass index and heart rate among hypertensive patients. Methods: Secondary data analysis of a cross-sectional study on clinical manifestations of hypertensive patients was carried out. All patients in the parent study had self-reported history of hypertension where each patient’s demographic profile and hypertension associated medical conditions had been recorded by interview while their blood pressure had been measured with the help of sphygmomanometer using stethoscope. Short-term heart rate variables were assessed using standard protocol. After cleaning, data of total 247 patients were used for final analysis -4using statistical package for social sciences version 20. Results: The study results showed a significant positive correlation between body mass index and heart rate of the patients (ρ=0.288, p<0.001). Age based analysis of the correlation between body mass index and heart rate showed that it was significant only among older respondents i.e. patients aged 41 years or above (ρ=0.314, p<0.001) whereas gender based analysis of the correlation between body mass index and heart rate showed that it was significant among both male and female patients (ρ=0.341, p<0.001 and ρ=0.222, p<0.016 respectively). Conclusion: Heart rate of the patients was found to be significantly correlated with their BMI. BMI of hypertensive patients could be used as an indication for presence of tachycardia among such individuals, especially those of advanced age.