We all need a good, strong heart.
Indeed, heart rate is an important indicator for overall health, as cardiovascular diseases remain the top causes of death globally. From a health standpoint, we should be exercising more regularly because we need to keep our ticker ticking. For the best results, physical exercise should raise our heart rate up to 50-80% of our maximum heart rate (which is determined by subtracting your age from 220 beats per minute). Sure, everyone can use a little more exercise, but you might wonder, is my heart rate increasing so much during exercise because I lack exercise or because of my genes (or both)?
A large genome-wide association study (the same study as the one referenced for Post-Exercise Heart Rate Recovery Rate) shows that heart rate increase during exercise is actually quite heritable. Investigators also found more than 20 gene loci were significantly associated with heart rate increase and reported that heart rate increase during exercise was highly correlated with heart rate recovery after exercise. Here's a link to the study to find out more: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29497042
Are you genetically predisposed to a quick increase in heart rate during exercise? Check Genomelink to find out!
