HR Medication Affects Mortality Risk with Bradycardia

Patients with bradycardia who take heart-rate-modifying medication have a higher risk of mortality than those who aren’t on medication, according to new research.

A high resting heart rate is linked to increased risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD), however, little is known about how a low resting heart rate affects middle-aged and elderly patients.
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To examine CVD and mortality risk in older patients with bradycardia, researchers followed 6733 patients between the ages of 45 and 84 who didn’t have CVD in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA).

From 2000 to 2002, researchers recorded patients’ heart rate via electrocardiogram. At baseline, the 5831 patients who weren’t taking heart-rate-modifying medication had a mean heart rate of 63 beats per minute (bpm). Only about 5% of these patients had a heart rate lower than 50 bpm.

After a 10-year follow-up, researchers found that patients on heart-rate-modifying medication who had a heart rate of less than 50 bpm or higher than 80 bpm had a higher risk of mortality than patients with a heart rate of 60 to 69 bpm. There was no significant affect on patients not taking heart-rate-modifying medication.

In addition, results showed that bradycardia wasn’t associated with developing CVD.

“In a contemporary, community-based cohort, bradycardia was generally not associated with incident CVD or mortality except for a potential adverse association between bradycardia among those taking heart-rate-modifying drugs,” researchers concluded.

--Amanda Balbi

Reference:

Dharod A, Soliman EZ, Dawood F, et al. Association of asymptomatic bradycardia with incident cardiovascular disease and mortality: The multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis (MESA). JAMA Intern Med. Published online January 19, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2015.7655.