Identifying poor cardiorespiratory fitness in overweight and obese children and adolescents by using heart rate variability analysis under resting conditions

Background: Childhood obesity, including overweight, continues increasing worldwide affecting health expectancy, quality of life and healthcare expenditure. These subjects have higher probability of suffering or developing cardio metabolic risk factors. Recent studies have revealed cardiorespiratory...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Redon, P, Grassi, G, Redon, J, Alvarez-Pitti, J, Lurbe, E
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:INCLIVA
Repositorio:r-INCLIVA. Repositorio Institucional de Producción Científica de INCLIVA
OAI Identifier:oai:incliva.fundanetsuite.com:p4338
Acceso en línea:https://incliva.portalinvestigacion.com/publicaciones/4338
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Cardiorespiratory fitness
obesity
heart rate variability
cardiovascular disease
children and adolescents
Descripción
Sumario:Background: Childhood obesity, including overweight, continues increasing worldwide affecting health expectancy, quality of life and healthcare expenditure. These subjects have higher probability of suffering or developing cardio metabolic risk factors. Recent studies have revealed cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) as a valuable clinical parameter to identify these subjects and have even suggested cut-off values. However, evaluating CRF in overweight and obese youth can be difficult to implement, unfriendly and expensive. Objective: Develop a screening tool to identify high-risk subjects in a representative population of those attending overweight/obesity assessment programmes without prior intervention. It will be based on heart rate variability parameters, which has strong association with CRF and cardio metabolic risk factors. Methods: Sixty-three subjects, overweight and obese, between 9 and 17 years of age, and of both sexes were enrolled. None of them had secondary obesity syndromes and/or suffered from acute or chronic disease. Anthropometric parameters, electrocardiogram signal recording under resting conditions and cardiorespiratory fitness - evaluated by oxygen consumption and time elapsed of cardiopulmonary exercise test - were measured. Results: Significant differences in the sympathetic nervous system activity - assessed by heart rate variability analysis - are observed when grouping by overweight and obesity degree as well as by CRF (poor/normal). Body mass index, puberty and sympathetic nervous system activity are the significant variables of a logistic regression model develop to identify poor CRF individuals. Its accuracy reaches 92%. Conclusions: A screening tool based on heart rate variability and anthropometric parameters was developed to identify subjects with higher probability of suffering or developing cardio metabolic risk factors.