Higher heart rate ups risk for early death
A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal predicts that a higher resting heart rate may increase the risk of death, even in people who do not have the usual risk factors (smoking, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, etc.) for heart disease. A normal adult resting heart has a range of 60 to 80 beats per minute.
It is well known that that a lower heart rate at rest implies more efficient heart function and better cardiovascular fitness. Most well-trained sportspersons have low heart rates, example – martial art practitioner Bruce Lee and tennis player Bjorn Borg, both had a resting heart rate of around 35 per minute.
Lead author of the study, Dongfeng Zhang from Qingdao University Medical College, Shandong, China says, ‘The association of resting heart rate with risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality is independent of traditional risk factors of cardiovascular disease, suggesting that resting heart rate is a predictor of mortality in the general population.’
The risk of death from any cause was 45 % higher for people with a resting heart rate of 80 or more beats/minute than those with a resting heart rate of 60-80 beats/minute.
This was concluded after the research team assessed 46 studies involving 1,246,203 patients and 78,349 deaths from all causes; and 848,320 patients and 25,800 deaths from heart disease.
‘Results from this meta-analysis suggest the risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality increased by nine percent for every 10 beats/minute increment of resting heart rate,’ Zhang said.
‘The risk of all-cause mortality increased significantly with increasing resting heart rate, but a significantly increased risk of cardiovascular mortality was observed at 90 beats/minute,’ the researcher added.
In case your heart rate is high due to a medical condition, make sure that the issue of lowering the heart rate is addressed by the physician.
