Is reduced heart rate variability associated with functional somatic disorders? A cross-sectional population-based study; DanFunD 2024 Jørgensen, Fink

Abstract

Objectives
It has been hypothesised that functional somatic disorders (FSD) could be initiated by sympathetic predominance in the autonomic nervous system as measured by low heart rate variability (HRV). Earlier studies on the association between HRV and FSD are small case–control studies hampered by selection bias and do not consider the great overlap between the various FSDs. The aim of the present study is to assess any associations between HRV and various FSDs and whether chronic stress confounds such an association.

Design
A cross-sectional general population-based study.

Setting
The Danish Study of Functional Somatic Disorders conducted 2013–2015 in 10 municipalities in the western part of Greater Copenhagen, Denmark.

Participants
A total of 6891 men and women aged 18–72 years were included in the analyses after exclusion of 602 persons with missing HRV data. Various delimitations of FSD (chronic fatigue, chronic widespread pain, irritable bowel and bodily distress syndrome) were identified by validated questionnaires and diagnostic interviews. HRV parameters in time and frequency domains were calculated from successive beat-to-beat heart rate (HR) data using the ‘E-motion’ HR monitor device during 7 min of supine rest. Chronic stress was assessed by Cohen’s self-perceived stress scale.

Outcome measures
Logistic regression analyses were used to calculate possible associations between the various delimitations of FSD and HRV adjusting for chronic stress.

Results
Persons with FSD had a slightly higher mean HR and lower HRV as measured by time domain parameters, whereas associations with frequency domain parameters were not consistent. Adjusting for chronic stress attenuated associations slightly.

Conclusion
The study supports a sympathetic predominance in persons with FSD, which could not be entirely explained by chronic stress. However, it is not possible to conclude whether the association is a causal factor to or a consequence of FSD.

Open access, https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/14/2/e073909

 

Strange with FSD/BPS proponents that when a biological parameter is measured they are open to the idea it may be a consequence of an illness but when psychological issues are mentioned they are always the cause of the problem.

 

Well then, why not actually TALK to the patient and ASK them which came first? Simples.

 

That makes it close to 10 papers from the DanFund study, and there is no reason for that. The individual papers are all on small aspects from the same data. It should have been one paper, two at most. This looks close to an academic scam, where the researchers managed to pull off getting multiple papers published without a good reason for any of it.

It's a fishing expedition, there is no sense or reason to most of what is "studied" here, and most of it is just the old tropes such as chronic stress, which we all know will never change those "researchers" from continuing to assert it anyway. So they scammed a government out of getting probably a dozen papers published, the conclusions of which they don't even care about unless it validates their prior expectations, and they will keep saying things that contradict their conclusions here if they feel like it. Because clearly nothing matters in this ideology. Facts are completely fabricated and health care systems just love it.

This is really all a scam. There is no other word for it. Psychosomatic medicine is a giant fraud. All of it.