Does Low Heart Rate Really Indicate A Problem

[yerrag]

Low resting heart rate means you are healthy and have good stamina.
Look at divers

What the heart rate of divers? I'm not a diver, but I can hold my breath for a long time. And my breathing rate can be lower, but my heart rate stays up. Could you be talking about breathing rate?

 

[TheBeard]

What the heart rate of divers? I'm not a diver, but I can hold my breath for a long time. And my breathing rate can be lower, but my heart rate stays up. Could you be talking about breathing rate?

I read somewhere that all mamals have a limited stock of heartbeats per life of 1 billion.
And the ones living longer being the ones whose heart beats slowest

 

[yerrag]

I read somewhere that all mamals have a limited stock of heartbeats per life of 1 billion.
And the ones living longer being the ones whose heart beats slowest

That's easily disproven, if I go by the 1 billion heartbeats as the basis. At a resting heart rate of 70, a person can only expect to live 27 years. Granting that the number came from the top of your head, and that it could be higher, I would be very interested to find out how that conclusion was reached. Was there a study made ?

 

[RatRancher]

40-50 bpm!!!!
I am at the other extreme. 110-130 bpm.
Neither are healthy imho.
Yes,athletes can develop low heart rates. Modern sports medicine says it is the result of "efficiency ".
But we know that even moderate exercise drops t3 quickly.
Being able to run a marathon or triathlon are adaptations to the organism. These adaptations are stressors.

For a non endurance athlete a hr in the 40s is not something to want.
A few years back I wore a holter monitor for 24 hours. My heart rate was 160s at some times in the day(without exercise), to 46 at one point as I slept. The point of this is that your daytime 40-50 hr,may be even lower as you sleep.

 

[RatRancher]

BTW, have you measured your respiration rate? How many breaths per minute?

 

[akgrrrl]

BTW, have you measured your respiration rate? How many breaths per minute?

Dear RatRancher, Yerrag, Blossom, LuckyType and all PeatPosters that have helped me start a new life--
Its Incredible!
My HR is still incredibly low, with 12 to 13 respirations per minute. At rest. that is...
But, I have actualized leaving the frosty North by ferry, began taking a healthy selection of wonderful IdeaLab products, dialed in my diet, and so far have enjoyed an immense sense of joy and empowerment on my adventure. There is still concern and bafflement over the numb feet and impaired neural signals to my left leg, but I have increased circulation overall. I cannot stress enough how effective my supps from IdeaLabs have been. I will ever be grateful to this forum for the hours of reading the most potent shared information I could never have gotten elsewhere. Thank you, and thank you all again. I am hooked on your community, and intend to progress to awesomeness this winter. Happy Halloweenie!

 

[akgrrrl]

Low resting heart rate means you are healthy and have good stamina.
Look at divers

Thank you, TheBeard, for that...

 

[yerrag]

Dear RatRancher, Yerrag, Blossom, LuckyType and all PeatPosters that have helped me start a new life--
Its Incredible!
My HR is still incredibly low, with 12 to 13 respirations per minute. At rest. that is...
But, I have actualized leaving the frosty North by ferry, began taking a healthy selection of wonderful IdeaLab products, dialed in my diet, and so far have enjoyed an immense sense of joy and empowerment on my adventure. There is still concern and bafflement over the numb feet and impaired neural signals to my left leg, but I have increased circulation overall. I cannot stress enough how effective my supps from IdeaLabs have been. I will ever be grateful to this forum for the hours of reading the most potent shared information I could never have gotten elsewhere. Thank you, and thank you all again. I am hooked on your community, and intend to progress to awesomeness this winter. Happy Halloweenie!

I'm glad you're feeling better. While your heart rate is low, you can take comfort that perhaps your metabolism is downregulated to protect you from harm. I've recently come to appreciate the importance of protective inhibition, something which Ray has talked about. Even though he mentions it referring to elderly people, I think it can apply as well to people who can experience stress due to some pathology, if the person were to have high metabolism. For example, an increased metabolism involves higher oxidation rates, and the body has to be able to protect itself from the harmful by-products of oxidation. If the body is unable to protect itself for one reason or another, it seems reasonable to think that it would choose to protect itself from harm by downregulating metabolism.

It goes down to being able to drill down into the cause of one's need to downregulate. Finding the cause is not easy, and it makes it hard to make the body increase its metabolic rate. I'm careful not to use brute methods to force the body to increase its metabolism. I like to think of the body as a river. It handles a limited range of flowrate. Increasing the flowrate beyond its ability to handle it have consequences. There will be floods. And some structures such as dams get broken.

 

[ecstatichamster]

I'm glad you're feeling better. While your heart rate is low, you can take comfort that perhaps your metabolism is downregulated to protect you from harm. I've recently come to appreciate the importance of protective inhibition, something which Ray has talked about. Even though he mentions it referring to elderly people, I think it can apply as well to people who can experience stress due to some pathology, if the person were to have high metabolism. For example, an increased metabolism involves higher oxidation rates, and the body has to be able to protect itself from the harmful by-products of oxidation. If the body is unable to protect itself for one reason or another, it seems reasonable to think that it would choose to protect itself from harm by downregulating metabolism.

It goes down to being able to drill down into the cause of one's need to downregulate. Finding the cause is not easy, and it makes it hard to make the body increase its metabolic rate. I'm careful not to use brute methods to force the body to increase its metabolism. I like to think of the body as a river. It handles a limited range of flowrate. Increasing the flowrate beyond its ability to handle it have consequences. There will be floods. And some structures such as dams get broken.

Great point. A study showed exercising was harmful for those 2 diabetics who couldn’t get out of lipolysis. An example I think. Low heart rate protects people with poor metabolisms. High HR in these people shows illness.

 

[Blossom]

I'm glad you're feeling better @akgrrrl. Great point @yerrag on protective inhibition.

 

[ecstatichamster]

I was reading a number of observational studies and they generally agree that low HR for aging is healthier and a high HR is less healthy as the mortality in a given time is much higher as people age, if they have a high HR.

But a low HR shows metabolic decline. A high HR for a metabolically "declined" person is very alarming.

It is confusing...

 

[Blossom]

I was reading a number of observational studies and they generally agree that low HR for aging is healthier and a high HR is less healthy as the mortality in a given time is much higher as people age, if they have a high HR.

But a low HR shows metabolic decline. A high HR for a metabolically "declined" person is very alarming.

It is confusing...

I haven't seen the studies but the high heart rate in someone metabolically declined could indicate some type of severe physical imbalance causing the heart to work harder. If the person doesn't have the reserves to deal with the situation it could lead to a further and possibly rapid decline like arrhythmias or worse. That's probably why mortality is considered higher with a high heart rate in aging. I'm assuming they were looking at older weaker hearts that simply can't accommodate much additional stress. Did they define high heart rate? Medically speaking tachycardia is usually considered >125.

 

[yerrag]

Great point. A study showed exercising was harmful for those 2 diabetics who couldn’t get out of lipolysis. An example I think. Low heart rate protects people with poor metabolisms. High HR in these people shows illness.

It makes sense, although I'm hard pressed to explain why it protects. I suppose the metabolism of PUFAs creates many free radicals, which the body has to neutralize. The rate at which it can neutralize is a limiting factor, and the body downregulates metabolism to the extent that it can handle. If the heart rate is increased, for example by using progesterone, it would override the body's self-protective mechanism. Or if the heart rate is high, it could mean the heart is pumping very inefficiently. It could be caused by electrolyte imbalance, for example. Or there could be calcification in the heart.

 

[lampofred]

I think there's so much confusion because a high heart rate can be caused by both good factors, like high thyroid hormone and metabolism, and bad factors like high adrenaline or poor vascular resistance (this is especially bad and maybe the most common cause of rising heart rate with age), also by anxiety

So even though a high heart rate due to high metabolism is good, there are many bad things that can cause a high heart rate

 

[akgrrrl]

I think there's so much confusion because a high heart rate can be caused by both good factors, like high thyroid hormone and metabolism, and bad factors like high adrenaline or poor vascular resistance (this is especially bad and maybe the most common cause of rising heart rate with age), also by anxiety

So even though a high heart rate due to high metabolism is good, there are many bad things that can cause a high heart rate

I am so grateful for the full discussion on this topic!

I'm glad you're feeling better @akgrrrl. Great point @yerrag on protective inhibition.

and aye, Blossom, I be getting better each week thank you for the support. My metabolism is most curious, as it waivers consistently between my dna influenced factors and the food/environments I now find myself moving through in the Pacific NW. This discussion was timely, as I oft spend considerable time in front of the OJ coolers...

 

[Aleeri]

Could not find a relevant thread so thought I would ask here.

I recently started back on some small T3 supplementation (Cynomel). About 1.5 mcg x2-3 per day.

What I noticed is that the last few days, about an hour after taking it my heart rate drops down into the 60-70 bpm. Usually, I am around 75-85bpm. In the evening when I took it before bed it even brought it down to 50-60 bpm.

What does this mean?

I actually feel more relaxed after taking the T3 as long as I have eaten, so is it true to guess that it is lowering stress hormones and my more "real" pulse rate at the moment is around 60-70 bpm?

The temperature has been fluctuating. Usually, wake up at 36.6 celsius but rises up to 37 midday after meals then go down again towards evening. I have noticed that T3 raises my temp slightly too but lowers pulse.

 

[Aleeri]

Also, I found this: T3 and Elevated Heart Rate | Recovering with T3

Frequently, prior to taking the T3 or NDT, heart rate may have been high and then, about one or two hours after the T3 or NDT dose, the heart rate may have fallen. This can indicate that the body actually needs more T3 or NDT medication (it is the T3 content that has this fast effect and can lower heart rate).

For some thyroid patients an increase of T3 or NDT medication raises heart rate. This can be due to simple excess thyroid hormone because the dose is too high. However, quite often it is due to low cortisol or low iron or to other conditions that are interfering with proper thyroid hormone action. Low cortisol for instance can cause the production of extra adrenaline when a dose of NDT or T3 is taken.

The heart is like other tissues, it requires enough T3 to work normally. If there is too much T3, sure, the heart rate can rise. However, the heart rate can also rise if there is not enough T3.

Many patients have found that their heart rates lower once they have either raised their T3 containing medication, or they have corrected their low cortisol, low iron or other issues that are interfering with thyroid hormone action.

 

[SamYo123]

85 bpm is best" is that sitting down at a desk, laying in bed or day to day movement doing things etc..

 

[akgrrrl]

85 bpm is best" is that sitting down at a desk, laying in bed or day to day movement doing things etc..

I had the same question, seems there is "resting HR" and "walking around HR"

 

[Perry Staltic]

Think about it. Assuming everyone has an equally strong heart, it doesn't take as many heart beats to get the job done with a good circulation system as it does with poorer circulation. More blood is pumped per beat when there is less vascular resistance and vice versa. Therefore, to get the same amount of blood circulated, a higher resistance vascular system will require more beats. It may be that some people with low heart rates have exceptionally good circulation.