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Higher illness burden is associated with reduced heart rate variability in bipolar disorder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

A. Ortiz*
Affiliation:
Department Of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
I. Husain
Affiliation:
Department Of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
P. Moorti
Affiliation:
Mood Disorders, The Royal Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
M. Alda
Affiliation:
Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
M. Sanches
Affiliation:
Department Of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
B. Mulsant
Affiliation:
Department Of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

Bipolar disorder (BD) is associated with premature death and ischemic heart disease is the main cause of excess mortality. The predictive power of heart rate variability (HRV) for mortality has been confirmed in patients with or without cardiovascular disease. While several studies have analyzed the association between HRV and BD, their results are incongruent; and none has analyzed the effect of the clinical factors characterizing illness burden on HRV.

Objectives

To assess the association between HRV and the following factors characterizing illness burden: illness duration, number and type of previous episode(s), duration of the most severe depressive or hypomanic/manic episode, severity of episodes, co-morbid psychiatric disorders, family history of BD or suicide, and duration and polarity of current episode in participants experiencing one.

Methods

We used a wearable device in 53 BD participants to assess the association between HRV using 4 measures (RMSSD, SDANN, SDNN and RR Triangular Index) and the abovementioned clinical factors characterizing illness burden. For each of the 4 HRV measures we ran 11 models, one for each burden of illness clinical factor as an independent variable.

Results

Longer illness duration, higher number of depressive episodes, and family history of suicide were negatively correlated with HRV; in the 14 participants experiencing a depressive episode, the MADRS score was negatively correlated with HRV

Conclusions

Our study analyzed the association between burden of illness and HRV in BD, while controlling for functional cardiovascular status, age, sex, BMI, education, and treatment. Our results showed that high illness burden is associated with reduced HRV.

Disclosure

No significant relationships.

Type
Abstract
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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