Pulse rate can predict heart attack in women

Washington, February 4:The frequency with which a woman’s heart beats can help predict the probability of her suffering a heart attack, U.S. researchers revealed.

For conducting the research, 130,000 post-menopausal women were observed for almost eight years. Not even a single woman of them had any previous experience of heart problems.

Also, the researchers took care of the various aspects that influence heart rate. These factors included high blood pressure, high levels of cholesterol, smoking and alcohol habits.

When the research commenced, all the women sat silently for five minutes in front of a trained observer. He then checked their pulse rate by coming in contact with the radial pulse for 30 seconds. This provided precise statistics for the heart rate of women when they were at complete rest.

As the study progressed over years, it was discovered that 2,281 women suffered a heart attack or died due to some heart disease. Also, 1,877 stroke cases were registered over this period of time.

The results revealed that women possessing the highest rate of 76 beats per minute were more likely to get affected with a heart attack or die due to the same. This was in comparison to women who had the lowest resting heart rate, i.e. 62 beats per minute or lesser. However, no relationship was found between resting heart rate and stroke.

When the results were analyzed more closely, it was seen that the amount of exercise done had no connection whatsoever with heart disease. In addition, there was no dissimilarity in the results of whites and minority ethnic women. Also, no difference was observed in figures of diabetic and non-diabetic women.

Lead author of the study, professor Judith Hsia from George Washington University and his fellow researchers were quoted as saying, “Resting heart rate, a low tech and inexpensive measure of autonomic tone, independently predicts myocardial infarctiondefine (heart attacks) or coronary death, but not stroke, in women.”

A news report on February 1, 2009 had revealed that heart disease is the major cause of death among millions of women all over the world and they are not even aware about this fact. It claims 17 times more lives than breast cancerdefine does annually.

The present study findings have been published on the internet in the British Medical Journal.