The Association of Cigarette Smoking With High-Frequency Heart Rate Variability: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study

Conclusions: In healthy smokers with high hostility levels used as their own controls during daily living, smoking acutely reduced HF-HRV. HF-HRV was also reduced in smokers as compared with nonsmokers. Although limited by a small sample of individuals with high hostility levels, these findings nonetheless provide additional evidence that cardiac vagal regulation is lowered by cigarette smoking, which may be one of the numerous pathophysiological effects of smoking.
Source: Psychosomatic Medicine - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research