Patent ID: 8812108

Claim:
A system, comprising: a myocardial stimulator adapted to deliver pacing pulses through at least one electrode to provide cardiac pacing; at least one sensor adapted for use in detecting heart rate to determine heart rate turbulence (HRT); a controller connected to the myocardial stimulator and the at least one sensor, wherein the controller is configured deliver a close-loop cardiac protective pacing therapy (CPPT) that intermittently stresses a heart to improve health through modulation of autonomic tone, wherein in delivering the close-loop CPPT the controller is configured to: intermittently deliver, using the myocardial stimulator, stress-inducing pacing pulses to the heart, wherein the intermittently delivered stress-inducing pacing pulses include sequences of stress-inducing pacing pulses to the heart to intentionally stress the heart to increase sympathetic tone during each of the sequences of stress-inducing pacing pulses, wherein the sequences are separated by time without stress-inducing pacing pulses; monitor cardiac stress by determining, using the detected heart rate from the at least one sensor, HRT to assess the cardiac stress to the stress-inducing pacing pulses; and adjust at least one parameter of the stress-inducing pacing pulses delivered for the CPPT to adjust the cardiac stress if the cardiac stress due to the stress-inducing pacing pulses is undesirable.