Mohit Nadar S¹,
Jannath Hameeda Banu²,
Kannan Rammiah³,
Rathnavel Kumaran Murugesan⁴
¹Second Year MBBS Student,
GMCH, Thiruvallur,
²Assistant Professor,
Department of Community Medicine,
GMCH, Thiruvallur,
³Professor & HOD,
Department of Physiology,
GMCH, Thiruvallur,
⁴Assistant Professor
Department of Physiology,
GMCH, Thiruvallur,
Tamil Nadu, India.

Abstract

• Introduction: Cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN) is a serious complication of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) which is often underdiagnosed. CAN constitutes the chief cause for silent myocardial infarction and sudden death in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a sensitive and non-invasive tool to assess the autonomic functions.
• Aim: To evaluate the effectiveness of heart rate variability as a tool to assess the autonomic functions in newly diagnosed T2DM patients.
• Methodology: 30 newly diagnosed T2DM patients in the age group of 18 – 45 years were recruited. ECG was recorded for 20 minutes to determine the HRV at supine rest with eyes closed. Instantaneous heart rate at RR intervals were plotted using RMS 2.5.2 software.
• Results: There was a significant reduction in the values of SDNN (ms), RMSSD (ms), NN50 count, pNN50% (time domain measures) and HF (ms2) (frequency domain measure). LF (ms2) levels and LF/HF ratio were significantly elevated in T2DM patients.
• Conclusion: HRV could detect cardiac autonomic neuropathy in newly diagnosed T2DM cases in the earlier stages and hence HRV can be used as an investigative tool to assess CAN in T2DM patients.

Keywords: Cardiac autonomic neuropathy, type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, silent myocardial infarction, Heart rate variability