Use of Non-linear Techniques to Investigate the Effect of Smoking and Alcohol Consumption on Heart Rate Variability

Abstract

Background: Recent researches on Heart Rate Variability (HRV) have suggested that besides traditional Linear analysis techniques, the Non-Linear parameters can also provide valuable information for the physiological interpretation of heart rate fluctuations. Normally, smokers and alcoholics have increased sympathetic and reduced vagal activity as measured by HRV analysis. Aim: The paper aims to describe the significance of nonlinear parameters of heart rate variability in order to investigate the consequence of smoking and alcohol consumption on cardio-autonomic control in both the genders. Materials and Methods: Current research is based on data acquired from three hundred healthy male and female subjects chosen on stratified random selection basis from various tea-gardens located in the North Eastern regions of West Bengal. The short-term R-R interval series were obtained using Suunto T6 Heart Rate Monitor and was then applied as input to Kubios HRV 2.0 software for evaluation and analysis. The statistical analysis was performed using PSPP software to compute the paired t-test. Results: The results obtained indicate that males who smoke regularly have shown a significantly lower HR variability with decreased SD1/SD2, S, CD, FD and ApEn; as compared to the alcoholics. Also, the female subjects have shown negative association of alcohol consumption with majority of the computed non-linear indices of HRV. Conclusion: This study establishes that the Non-Linear parameters of HRV can also be successfully utilized to demonstrate reduced beat-to-beat variations in case of smoking and alcoholic population, thereby anticipating higher mortality