The association and clinical predictive value of resting heart rate and hypertension on cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy in general population

Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore the extent of associations of cardiovascular autonomic (CAN) with hypertension (HT) and resting heart rate (HR), and to evaluate the predictive value of HT combined with HR on CAN in a large sample derived from a Chinese population. Methods: We conducted a large-scale, cross-sectional study among 2092 subjects. CA function was measured by using short-time heart rate variable test. CAN was diagnosed on at least two abnormal CA function tests. The associations of CAN with HT and resting HR were assessed by a multivariate logistic regression (MLR) analysis. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve was used to evaluate the predictive performances of both factors. Results: A tendency toward increased CAN prevalence with increasing resting HR was reported (P for trend <0.001). MLR analysis showed that HT and resting HR were very significantly and independently associated with CAN (beta = 0.439 for HT and beta = 0.946 for HR, P < 0.001 for both). Resting HR and it combined HT (HT-HR) strongly predicted CAN (AUC = 0.719, 95% CI: 0.690-0.748, P < 0.001 for resting HR and AUC = 0.743 95% CI: 0.715-0.770, P < 0.001 for HT-HR). Conclusion: Our findings signify that, in the general Chinese population, HT and resting HR had a high value in predicting CAN.