Glossary
Heart rate variability
The beat-to-beat variation in the spacing of the pulse, tracking the vagus nerve's influence on the heart. Low values track worse health, and there is no score to hit.
Published Updated
Where this comes from
In the reference topic that owns this term
Reference topic 8, The Heart That Remembers the Savanna, states the mismatch as a card: what the system evolved to expect, what it gets instead, and what happens in the gap.
Mismatch card
- What it expects
Hours of light and moderate activity daily, little salt, plenty of potassium, a lean body and low LDL for life.
- What it gets
Long sitting, about 11 g of salt a day on the global average, too little potassium, abundant food.
- What happens in the gap
Blood pressure that climbs with age, earlier and commoner atherosclerosis, a lower aerobic ceiling; 1.4 billion adults aged 30 to 79 with hypertension.
What that chapter recommends
3 of the 7 graded recommendations in Reference topic 8, strongest evidence first. How the grades work.
Move through the day, every day
StrongEvidence grade: Strong. Multiple randomized controlled trials, or consistent large cohort studies with a well-understood mechanism.Use the step and weekly-minute targets in Chapter 40; the Tsimane pattern is hours of mostly light and moderate activity.
Raise your ceiling
StrongEvidence grade: Strong. Multiple randomized controlled trials, or consistent large cohort studies with a well-understood mechanism.Steady endurance training and intervals both raise VO2 max, by about 5 mL/kg/min in trials of healthy adults aged 18 to 45, intervals slightly more.
Eat for potassium
StrongEvidence grade: Strong. Multiple randomized controlled trials, or consistent large cohort studies with a well-understood mechanism.Build meals on fruit and vegetables, as DASH did, though that diet changed more than potassium. WHO suggests at least 3,510 mg of potassium a day from food.
Related terms
Other reference topics that mention Heart rate variability
The argument behind this term, its studies and its notes are in Reference topic 8 of the reference library. The book gives the practical version. Get the book.