Impact of long COVID on the heart rate variability at rest and during deep breathing maneuver, 2023, da Silva et al

Impact of long COVID on the heart rate variability at rest and during deep breathing maneuver

Abstract
While the majority of individuals with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) recover completely, a significant percentage experience persistent symptom, which has been characterized as Long COVID and may be associated with cardiac and autonomic dysfunction.

We evaluated heart rate variability (HRV) at rest and during deep-breathing (M-RSA) in patients with Long COVID. Case–control design involved 21 patients with Long COVID and 20 controls; the HRV was evaluated (POLAR system) at rest in the supine position and during M-RSA and expressed in time domain and non-linear analysis.

In the supine position we found a reduction HRV measures in Long COVID’ patients compared to controls for: Mean_iRR (p < 0.001), STD_iRR (p < 0.001); STD_HR (p < 0.001); SD1 (p < 0.001); SD2 (p < 0.001); alpha2 (p < 0.001). In the M-RSA we found reduction Mean_iRR (p < 0.001), STD_iRR (p < 0.001), STD_HR (p < 0.001), rMSSD (p < 0.001), RR_tri-index (p < 0.001) in Long COVID’ patients except for highest Mean_HR p < 0.001.

In conclusion, Long COVID reduced HRV at rest and during deep breathing. These findings may imply impairment of cardiac autonomic control when symptoms of COVID-19 persist following initial recovery.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-50276-0

 

Most of the patients were hospitalised (17 out of 21) are also more than 10 years older than the control group on average and have a much higher BMI. I cannot see what the mean Long-Covid duration is, but they recruited patients 4–16 weeks after a COVID-19 infection, which seems far too early to say anything meaningful unless your end goal is to do a long-term follow-up of these patients to see how their symptoms evolve.