Diet-Induced Metabolic Syndrome Reduced Heart Rate Variability and Increased Irregularity and Complexity of Short-Term RR Time Series in Rabbits.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) has been linked to a higher prevalence of sudden cardiac death (SCD), but the mechanisms are not well understood. One possible underlying mechanism may be an abnormal modulation of autonomic activity, which can be quantified by analyzing heart rate variability (HRV). Our aim was to investigate the modifications of short-term HRV in an experimental rabbit model during the time-course of MetS development. NZW rabbits were randomly assigned to a control ( = 10) or a MetS group ( = 13), fed 28 weeks with control or high-fat, high-sucrose diets. After anesthesia, a 15-min ECG recording was acquired before diet administration and at weeks 14 and 28. We analyzed short RR time series using time-domain, frequency-domain and nonlinear analyses. A mixed-model factorial ANOVA was used for statistical analysis. Time-domain analysis showed a 52.4% decrease in the standard deviation of heart rate in animals from the MetS group at week 28, but no changes in the rest of parameters. In the frequency domain, we found a 9.7% decrease in the very low frequency and a 380.0% increase of the low frequency bands in MetS animals at week 28, whereas high frequency remained unchanged. Nonlinear analyses showed increased complexity and irregularity of the RR time series in MetS animals.