Decreased and Increased Baroreceptor Sensitivity Are Associated With Incident Heart Failure in the Elderly: A 15‐Year Follow‐Up Study

ABSTRACT Aims Congestive heart failure (CHF) is associated with increased mortality. Early identification of individuals at risk for CHF may improve the poor prognosis. Decreased baroreceptor sensitivity (BRS) has been related to higher mortality in CHF. The aim was therefore to explore whether decreased BRS could identify patients at risk for the development of CHF. Methods and Results The PIVUS (Prospective Investigation of the Vasculature in Uppsala Seniors) study (1016 individuals, all aged 70 years) was used for analysis of baroreceptor sensitivity, measured by sequence analysis (BRS seq ) and spectral analysis (BRSαHF and BRSαLF). During 15 years of follow‐up, 98/844 individuals developed CHF. Both decreased and increased BRS seq were associated with incident CHF ( p = 0.027) after multiple adjustments. A similar pattern was seen for BRSαHF ( p = 0.017) in a sex‐adjusted model, but not after multiple adjustment, while BRSαLF was unrelated to incident CHF. Conclusion A decreased BRS was associated with incident CHF in an elderly population. An increased BRS was also found, although to a lesser degree, to be linked to CHF, which was a novel finding. If reproduced in further studies, BRS might prove to be useful for an early identification of CHF in clinical practice.