Should we be using heart rate variability counts to gauge disease activity in persons with rheumatoid arthritis?

As noted, there is now intriguing, yet preliminary, evidence that electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve may attenuate disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis and perhaps other immune-mediated diseases. (Genovese et al., Lancet Rheum 2:e527; 2020) However, the mechanisms by which this may occur ...

Thanks for the citation and response.

Heart rate variability is a measurable manifestation of the fluctuations that occur with the sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic nerve systems in response to minor hemodynamic changes. A low heart rate variability reflects sympathetic predominance that can...