resting pulse and mortality

[jyb]

They tried controlling for fitness, but they find higher resting rate is associated with higher mortality. Any explanations?

http://heart.bmj.com/content/early/2013/03/21/heartjnl-2012-303375

 

[Dan W]

Someone on the facebook group had a response from Peat about it:

The journal's "partner" is the Bayer company. Heart journals' main function is to sell drugs. The authors described the subjects as healthy and middle aged, but within 16 years 39% of them had died. A high proportion of europeans and americans have failing hearts, and a failing heart beats faster but pumps less. I think they selected a population with a higher than average proportion of heart failure. The failing heart is unable to meet the body's need for oxygen, and a decreased ability to use oxygen corresponds to a lack of "fitness," or vitality and ability to survive.

I also wonder if there's other reasons their resting heart rate was high (stress hormones or otherwise). It seems unlikely that a typical person has a high resting heart rate because of a strong metabolism.

 

[jaa]

High Heart Rate Correlated With Higher Mortality Rate

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/1 ... life-span/

What do people make of this?

 

[jyb]

Re: High Heart Rate Correlated With Higher Mortality Rate

http://www.raypeatforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=1567

 

[jaa]

thanks

 

[pboy]

this might sound strange, but even though the slower heart rates live a little longer...does this mean their lives were better along the way? They might have been living a low key life, not having too many ups and downs, getting sick time to time, and live our their life...where as someone with a strong purpose and passion who experiences more ups and downs might die a little earlier, but have a faster heartrate, metabolism, and be generating a better sense of worth and purpose in their day to day lives....in essence they 'spend' their life a little quicker, but utilize it better. I guess the question is ...is the high heartrate due to motivated passion and healthy bloodflow, or is the high heartrate due to constricted bloodflow and stress?