Introduction: Ewing’s battery of cardiac autonomic function tests provides a single value ignoring the decline in autonomic function with ageing. Objective: To derive age related normal range of heart rate response to deep breathing at six respiratory cycles per minute (HRV) from healthy subjects and estimate the prevalence of cardiac autonomic dysfunction in diabetes. Materials and Methods: HRV was measured in 207 subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus and 141 healthy subjects matched for age and sex of diabetics.
Abnormal scores had been defined as those more than 2 standard deviation below the mean value in controls. Results: Diabetics had lower HRV compared to controls in above the ≤ 40 year’s age groups (p < 0.0001). Abnormal HRV expressed in beats per minute for different class intervals of age was: ≥ 40 years: < 17; 41-50 years :< 13; 51-60 years: < 11; ≥ 61 years :< 7.Abnormal…
