Effect of 4 weeks resonance frequency breathing on glucose metabolism and autonomic tone in healthy adults
Loading...
Date issued
Editors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Reuse License
Abstract
Background
The autonomic nervous system plays a crucial role in the brain’s communication with metabolically important peripheral organs, modulating insulin sensitivity and secretion. Increased sympathetic tone is a common feature in prediabetes and diabetes. The parasympathetic nervous system activity might be improvable through resonance frequency breathing (RFB) with heart rate variability biofeedback (HRV-BF) training.
Methods
We here investigated the effect of a 4-week mobile RFB-HRV-BF intervention on glucose metabolism and HRV of 30 healthy adults (17 females; mean age 25.77±3.64 years; mean body mass index 22.65±2.95 kg/m2). Before and after the intervention, glucose metabolism was assessed by 75 g oral glucose tolerance tests (with blood sampling every 30 minutes over 2 hours) and HRV was measured through electrocardiography.
Results
RFB-HRV-BF training did not influence glucose metabolism in healthy adults but reduced fasting as well as 2-hour-postload glucose in participants categorized as more insulin resistant before the intervention. In addition, RFB-HRV-BF training was associated with an increase in the time and frequency domain HRV parameters standard deviation of all NN-intervals, root mean square successive differences, HRV high-frequency and HRV low-frequency after 4 weeks of intervention.
Conclusion
Our findings introduce RFB-HRV-BF training as an effective tool to modulate the autonomic nervous system with a shift towards the parasympathetic tone. Along with the observed decrease in glycemia in those with lower insulin sensitivity, RFB-HRV-BF training emerges as a promising non-pharmacological approach to improve glucose metabolism which has to be further investigated in prediabetes and diabetes
Description
Keywords
Citation
Published in
Diabetes & metabolism journal, 49, 6, Korean Diabetes Association, Seoul, 2025, https://doi.org/10.4093/dmj.2024.0647