THE HEART RATE VARIABILITY IN NORMOTENSIVE AND HYPERTENSIVE INDIAN ADULTS IN MADHUBANI DISTRICT OF BIHAR- A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Background: Autonomic imbalance is seen in hypertensive. Hypertension is a critical health condition that damages vascular system and organ systems like heart, brain, kidneys, eyes and genital organs. Aims & Objective: To compare the heart rate variability in normotensive and hypertensive Indian adults in Madhubani district of Bihar. Methods And Materials: The study was conducted in the Department of Physiology, Madhubani Medical College, Madhubani, Bihar. The test group consisted of 75 healthy normotensive subjects studying in 1st year of MBBS with hypertensive parents and the control group consisted of 75 healthy normotensive of 1st year of MBBS with both parents normotensive. In time domain analysis the standard deviation of all normal-to-normal intervals {SDNN(ms)} was taken as index of overall HRV. Frequency domain analysis was done with respect to low frequency (LF) analysis and high frequency (HF) analysis. Low and high frequency power were expressed in normalized units. Results: The SDNN was reduced in cases but was not statistically signicant. RMSSD was also reduced in cases though not statistically signicant. LFnu was found to be signicantly higher in cases. The HFnu was signicantly reduced in cases. LF/HF ratio was found to be higher in cases and the difference was statistically signicant. Study comprised of 60 test subjects and 60 controls. There were no signicant differences in the age, height and BMI between the two groups. There were no signicant differences in the basal systolic and diastolic blood pressure as well as pulse rate in between the two groups. Conclusion: Our ndings show that HRV is reduced in normotensive young adults with history of parental hypertension. This lower HRV is associated with greater risk for developing latent hypertension.