Influence of snack intake on cardiac autonomic nervous system in patients with type 2 diabetes

Abstract

Food intake induces significant changes in heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) among healthy individuals. It is known that the cardiac autonomic nervous system (CANS) is impaired in patients with type 2 diabetes. The main goal of this pilot study was to investigate whether snack intake can affect CANS in this patient population. For this purpose, ECG was recorded pre- and post-snack intake in 15 volunteers with type 2 diabetes. Mean HR and short-term HRV measures (e.g., SDNN, RMSSD, percentage of power in LF and HF band, and LF/HF) were extracted and compared using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test between pre- and post-snack intake. From pre- to post-snack intake, mean glucose level increased by 24.1 points (p=0.10) while mean heart rate increased by 1.9 beats per minute (p=0.30). Changes in SDNN, RMSSD, power in LF band (%), power in HF band (%), and LF/HF were not existent (p=0.39, 0.80, 0.45, 0.98, 0.36, respectively). As expected, an increase in glucose count was observed shortly after snack intake. No cardiac neural response, however, was observed in our sample of type 2 diabetics.