Heart Rate Variability and Incident Type 2 Diabetes in General Population

Context: Hyperglycemia and autonomic dysfunction are bidirectionally related. Objective: We investigated the association of longitudinal evolution of heart rate variability (HRV) with incident type 2 diabetes (T2D) among the general population. Methods: We included 7630 participants (mean age 63.7 years, 58% women) from the population-based Rotterdam Study who had no history of T2D and atrial fibrillation at baseline and had repeated HRV assessments at baseline and during follow-up. We used joint models to assess the association between longitudinal evolution of heart rate and different HRV metrics (including the heart rate-corrected SD of the normal-to-normal RR intervals [SDNNc], and root mean square of successive RR-interval differences [RMSSDc]) with incident T2D. Models were adjusted for cardiovascular risk factors. Bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) using summary-level data was also performed. Results: During a median follow-up of 8.6 years, 871 individuals developed incident T2D. One SD increase in heart rate (hazard ratio [HR] 1.20; 95% CI, 1.09-1.33), and log(RMSSDc) (HR 1.16; 95% CI, 1.01-1.33) were independently associated with incident T2D. The HRs were 1.54 (95% CI, 1.08-2.06) for participants younger than 62 years and 1.15 (95% CI, 1.01-1.31) for those older than 62 years for heart rate (P for interaction <.001). Results from bidirectional MR analyses suggested that HRV and T2D were not significantly related to each other. Conclusion: Autonomic dysfunction precedes development of T2D, especially among younger individuals, while MR analysis suggests no causal relationship. More studies are needed to further validate our findings.