How is low HRV related to longer term recovering alcoholics?

We cited and use excerpts from a study (2) into short term and longer term (3) of up to six months which shows that alcoholics with years of recovery still have low HRV although it improves although this is dependent of severity of the alcoholism.

“It is known that chronic and heavy alcohol use has a toxic effect on the nervous system,[2] including effects on autonomic nervous system.[3] Specifically, heavy alcohol use can cause cardiac autonomic neuropathy,[4] which in turn, is associated with greater mortality.

Resting cardiac autonomic function reportedly favors energy conservation by way of parasympathetic dominance over sympathetic influence. Heart rate is characterized by beat-to-beat variability over a wide range, which has been reported to indicate vagal dominance and thereby parasympathetic dominance.[5]

In those with alcohol dependence, HRV is lower than in healthy individuals even after several days of abstinence.[13,14] This decrement may improve with abstinence for long periods of time.[15,16]

A study of 24-h ambulatory HRV found significantly reduced HRV in alcohol-dependent men with established vagal neuropathy and in some without.[17] Alcohol dependence has been shown to compromise vagal output measured before sleep onset, which correlates with loss of delta sleep and morning sleep impairments.[18]

Reduced HRV was found in alcohol-dependent patients with negative mood states and compulsive drinking.[19] Rechlin et al.,[20] reported reductions in HRV in patients with alcohol dependence, and this has been consistently reported in subsequent studies.[21,22]”

“Heart rate variability (HRV) was studied in 11 chronic alcoholic subjects, 1–30 days after the beginning of abstinence and again 5, 12 and 24 weeks later. Two patients could be re-examined after 19 and 22 months, respectively. In the follow-up study, the total patient group showed a statistically significant increase in HRV with prolonged abstinence of at least 6 months.

No recovery of efferent vagal function was found in 4 patients. It is suggested that the vagal neuropathy may improve in chronic alcoholics, but perhaps only in patients with a short to moderately long duration of drinking history (3)”.

Thus it seems thee is a partial recovery in HRV as recovery proceeds although there may be work required depending on severity of one’s alcoholism.

In our next blog on HRV we will cite and use excerpts from one of the best articles authored by Thayer which is the best explanation of how low HRV keeps an alcoholics attention “locked in” to stuff he/she would rather it didn’t get locked into such as alcohol-related cues.

References

1. THAYER, J. F., AHS, F., FREDRIKSON, M., SOLLERS, J. J., & WAGER, T. D. (2012). A meta-analysis of heart rate variability and neuroimaging studies: Implications for heart rate variability as a marker of stress and health.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 36(2), 747-756.

2. Ganesha, S., Thirthalli, J., Muralidharan, K., Benegal, V., & Gangadhar, B. N. (2013). Heart rate variability during sleep in detoxified alcohol-dependent males: A comparison with healthy controls. Indian journal of psychiatry, 55(2), 173.

3. Weise, F., Müller, D., Krell, D., Kielstein, V., & Koch, R. D. (1986). Heart rate variability in chronic alcoholics: a follow-up study. Drug and alcohol dependence, 17(4), 365-368.