Racial Differences On Post Exercise Heart Rate Recovery In Healthy Sedentary Adult Males-- A Meta-Analysis Study

Introduction: Post-exercise heart rate recovery (PEHRR) is the measure of parasympathetic function of heart which decreases the heart rate as the person stops exercising. The post exercise heart rate recovery is easily measurable index of heart parasympathetic activity. The post – exercise heart rate recovery is computed as peak heart rate minus the heart rate measured after 1 min of termination of exercise. The risk of cardiovascular disease in individual with African background is greater as compared to Caucasians and Asian population. The aim of this study was to analyze the difference in post exercise heart rate recovery in individuals from different ethnic backgrounds. Methods: A thorough literature search was carried out on PubMed, Google Scholar and PakMediNet with articles published between 2007 till 2021. The articles with post – exercise heart rate recovery in male adults with different ethnic backgrounds were included. A total of 8 studies were included after meeting the inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis. The studies that measured heart rate recovery after 1 minute of termination of exercise were included. Results: Out of 174 subjects 51 individuals were Africans, 104 were Asians and 19 were Caucasians. The post exercise heart raterecovery was not found to be statistically significant between the individuals from different ethnic groups (p value-0.258). Conclusion: The post – exercise heart rate recovery is not influenced by the racial differences. Further research on larger scale assessing the impact of parasympathetic activity in terms of heart rate recovery in individual from different ethnic background is required as very limited data is available till date.