Psychological traits such as optimism and hostility affect coronary heart disease (CHD) risk, but mechanisms for this association are unclear. We hypothesized that optimism and hostility may affect CHD risk via changes in heart rate variability (HRV).
We conducted a longitudinal analysis using data from the Women's Health Initiative Myocardial Ischemia and Migraine Study. Participants underwent 24-hour ambulatory ECG monitoring 3 years after enrollment. Optimism (Life Orientation Test-Revised), cynical hostility (Cook-Medley), demographics, and coronary risk factors were assessed at baseline. HRV measures included standard deviation of average N-N intervals (SDNN); standard deviation of average N-N intervals over 5 min (SDANN); and average heart rate (HR). CHD - was defined as the first occurrence of myocardial infarction, angina, coronary angioplasty, and bypass grafting. Linear and Cox regression models adjusted for CHD risk factors were used to examine, respectively, associations between optimism, hostility and HRV and between HRV and CHD risk.
Final analyses included 2655 women. While optimism was not associated with HRV, hostility was inversely associated with HRV 3 years later (SDANN: adjusted β= -0.54; 95% CI -0.97, -0.11; SDNN: -0.49; 95% CI -0.93, -0.05). HRV was inversely associated with CHD risk; for each 10 milliseconds increase in SDNN or SDANN there was a decrease in CHD risk of 9% (p=0.023) and 12% (p=0.006), respectively.
HRV did not play a major role in explaining why more optimistic women appear to be somewhat protected from CHD risk. Although hostility was inversely associated with HRV, its role in explaining the association between hostility and CHD risk remains to be established.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 March 2019.
All research outputs
#24,957,092
of 34,640,154 outputs
Outputs from Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine (BSAM)
#2,392
of 2,925 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#272,365
of 392,666 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine (BSAM)
#27
of 31 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,640,154 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 19th percentile – i.e., 19% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,925 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 22.3. This one is in the 14th percentile – i.e., 14% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 392,666 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 23rd percentile – i.e., 23% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 31 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 3rd percentile – i.e., 3% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
