• Tomonori Okamura, Takehito Hayakawa, Takashi Kadowaki, Yoshikuni Kita, Akira Okayama, Paul Elliott, Hirotsugu Ueshima, and NIPPONDATA80 Research Group.
• Department of Health Science, Shiga University of Medical Science, Otsu City, Shiga, Japan. tokamura@belle.shiga-med.ac.jp
• Am. Heart J. 2004 Jun 1; 147 (6): 1024-32.

BackgroundSeveral prospective studies have reported resting heart rate (HR) to be a risk factor for certain cause-specific death, together with sex- or age-specific differences in the effects of HR on death. However, there have been few prospective data from non-Western populations.MethodsCohort study, over 16.5 years to date of death or end of follow-up (November 15, 1998) involving 8800 men and women > or =30 years of age randomly selected throughout Japan, who participated in the National Survey on Circulatory Disorders in 1980. Resting HR was determined from 3 consecutive intervals between R waves on the 12-lead electrocardiogram.ResultsFor middle-aged men (30 to 59 years of age), in the highest quartile of HR, there was a significant positive association with cardiovascular (RR, 2.55; 95% CI, 1.22 to 5.31) and all-cause death (RR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.06 to 2.00). For middle-aged women, in the highest quartile, there was a significant positive association with noncancer, noncardiovascular (RR, 2.41; 95% CI, 1.04 to 5.59), and all-cause death (RR, 1.94; 95% CI, 1.26 to 3.01). Resting HR also showed a significant positive association with cardiac events but not to stroke. These relations were not evident for elderly subjects (> or =60 years of age). Results were not affected when deaths within the first 5 years of follow-up were excluded, except for noncancer, noncardiovascular death.ConclusionsHigh resting HR is an independent predictor of long-term death in the Japanese general population.

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