They underwent exercise testing up to an age-predicted heart rate and then stopped before they reached the point of absolute exhaustion. About two-thirds of the patients had a heart rate decrease of at least 43 beats per minute during the first two minutes after exercise. Thus, for example, if a person exercised up to a heart rate of 150 beats per minute, two minutes later his or her heart rate was 107 or less. Physicians often send healthy, asymptomatic adults for exercise testing to assess risk of subsequent life-threatening heart problems and to ensure that an exercise program is safe. They primarily focus on electrocardiogram changes to determine whether the test is abnormal.
Electrocardiograms measure the heart's electrical activity.
This could make the exercise test considerably more valuable as a screening study, much like Pap smears or mammograms. Further studies will be needed to confirm this. Also, the exercise test could be used for assessing life insurance risk, particularly for people applying for expensive policies. What is unknown, however, is the precise underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon and how best to treat them. Possible remedies for an abnormal heart rate recovery include exercise training, smoking cessation, and certain types of drugs such as beta-blockers, but more research is needed to answer these questions, Dr. Lauer said.