A new study published in the journal Respirology suggests that heart-related therapies could potentially improve the wellbeing of some people suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) as the mechanisms controlling the heart play a vital role in the life quality of these patients’.
COPD develops as a co-occurrence of chronic bronchitis and emphysema narrowing the airways and causing shortness of breath sometimes independent of lung disease. It often results in patients’ poor physical and mental quality of life, however little is known about the determining factors. COPD Patients’ resting heart rates are often highly elevated and with decreased heart rate variability.
Arnoldus J.R. van Gestel, of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, in Switzerland, and his team decided to establish whether patients’ heart health might impact their quality of life by assessing 60 COPD patients using a questionnaire and monitoring their heart rates. Because decreased heart rate variability suggests that the heart is impaired in altering its own beat frequency, the researchers could establish how the heart adjusts to different levels of demand through monitoring heart rate variability.
They discovered an important association between patients’ quality of life scores and their heart rate variability, in particular that those experiencing a low life quality were inclined to have decreased heart rate variability.
Dr. van Gestel commented:
“Researchers have been trying to investigate the main causes of poor quality of life in COPD patients in order to improve their heath status. In this study, we found that the autonomic nervous system, which controls heart rate, plays an important role in the decrease in quality of life.”
He concludes that further studies are required in order to establish precisely what that role is, adding that the findings highlight the significance of testing, and maybe treating COPD patients’ heart health.
Written by Petra Rattue