Average heart rates of hispanic and caucasian adolescents during sleep: longitudinal analysis from the TuCASA cohort.

Objective: The current study describes sleeping heart rate patterns in an adolescent cohort of Hispanic and Caucasian children over approximately a 5-year period to determine how sex, ethnicity, and body mass index (BMI) contribute to sleeping heart rate patterns over time. Methods: Participants were recruited from a large urban school district in the southwest United States as part of the Tucson Children’s Assessment of Sleep Apnea Study (TuCASA). Heart rate data was obtained through electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings during in-home polysomnography, approximately 5 years apart. Second-wave cohort data were analyzed to determine how age, sex, ethnicity, physical activity, and BMI contribute to average sleeping heart rates. The same variables were used to investigate how sleeping heart rate patterns change longitudinally from school-age (6–11 years) to adolescence (10–17 years) during sleep. Results: Female adolescents had signifi cantly faster average heart rates during sleep. Sleeping heart rate decreased signifi cantly with increasing age in the adolescent cohort. Although the Hispanic group had a statistically signifi cant higher body mass index than Caucasians, there were no signifi cant differences in heart rate observed between ethnicities or in those who were classifi ed as obese (BMI ≥ 95 th percentile for age). Longitudinal analysis between the school-aged and adolescent cohort revealed a signifi cant overall decrease in heart rate across a 5-year period. Conclusions: Hispanic and Caucasian adolescents experience a similar decrease in sleeping heart rate with age. Female adolescents had signifi cantly faster heart rates than males, and no signifi cant differences were observed between Caucasians