Eppinga RN, Hagemeijer Y, Burgess S, et al. Identification of genomic loci associated with resting heart rate and shared genetic predictors with all-cause mortality. Nat Genet;advance online publication. http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.3708.html
Resting heart rate is a heritable trait correlated with life span. Little is known about the genetic contribution to resting heart rate and its relationship with mortality.
We performed a genome-wide association discovery and replication analysis starting with 19.9 million genetic variants and studying up to 265,046 individuals to identify 64 loci associated with resting heart rate (P < 5 × 10−8); 46 of these were novel. We then used the genetic variants identified to study the association between resting heart rate and all-cause mortality.
We observed that a genetically predicted resting heart rate increase of 5 beats per minute was associated with a 20% increase in mortality risk (hazard ratio 1.20, 95% confidence interval 1.11–1.28, P = 8.20 × 10−7) translating to a reduction in life expectancy of 2.9 years for males and 2.6 years for females.
Our findings provide evidence for shared genetic predictors of resting heart rate and all-cause mortality.
Resting heart rate is a heritable trait correlated with life span. Little is known about the genetic contribution to resting heart rate and its relationship with mortality.
We performed a genome-wide association discovery and replication analysis starting with 19.9 million genetic variants and studying up to 265,046 individuals to identify 64 loci associated with resting heart rate (P < 5 × 10−8); 46 of these were novel. We then used the genetic variants identified to study the association between resting heart rate and all-cause mortality.
We observed that a genetically predicted resting heart rate increase of 5 beats per minute was associated with a 20% increase in mortality risk (hazard ratio 1.20, 95% confidence interval 1.11–1.28, P = 8.20 × 10−7) translating to a reduction in life expectancy of 2.9 years for males and 2.6 years for females.
Our findings provide evidence for shared genetic predictors of resting heart rate and all-cause mortality.
