Respiratory modulation of cardiac vagal tone in Lyme disease

Table 1 Main findings

	Lyme disease patients n = 18 mean (standard error)	Controls n = 18 mean (standard error)	P-value
Age, yr	35.6 (3.7)	44.7 (3.9)	0.10
Sex	7 males, 11 females	7 males, 11 females	1.00
Body mass	25.0 (1.2) kg	24.6 (0.80) kg	0.44
Arterial blood pressure	74.1 (3.9) mmHg	66.9 (4.4) mmHg	0.23
Resting cardiac rate	72.0 (3.1) min-1	63.7 (4.5) min-1	0.14
Resting cardiac vagal tone	4.7 (0.8)	5.7 (1.1)	0.46
Maximum cardiac vagal tone during deep breathing	11.2 (1.3)	16.5 (1.7)	0.02

Table 2 Heart rate data for the patients

Patient number	Heart rate at 20 beats before the deep breathing procedure	Heart rate 20 beats before the end of the deep breathing procedure	Heart rate two minutes after the deep breathing procedure
1	71.8	80.5	76.0
2	90.8	90.7	83.1
3	89.8	120.7	83.5
4	68.0	73.6	66.0
5	70.3	86.4	66.3
6	90.5	83.6	90.6
7	69.0	68.6	70.2
8	64.4	65.5	61.7
9	141.8	125.9	137.8
10	69.5	76.1	70.3
11	71.9	71.6	74.5
12	69.4	71.6	71.4
13	74.6	78.1	79.7
14	68.4	69.9	66.7
15	68.7	77.2	68.3
16	62.0	72.9	65.3
17	69.2	72.1	67.5
18	63.0	69.1	68.3

Table 3 Heart rate data for the controls

Patient number	Heart rate at 20 beats before the deep breathing procedure	Heart rate 20 beats before the end of the deep breathing procedure	Heart rate two minutes after the deep breathing procedure
1	86.8	88.7	90.9
2	52.8	70.2	52.0
3	67.0	74.9	69.5
4	73.7	83.7	75.8
5	62.9	63.9	54.3
6	65.0	73.4	61.8
7	65.2	69.2	65.6
8	73.8	78.0	76.0
9	64.5	70.6	53.8
10	66.6	66.7	64.2
11	63.4	72.6	66.7
12	62.9	69.8	63.1
13	75.4	73.5	79.0
14	78.8	81.8	72.1
15	70.6	81.2	66.4
16	76.0	70.9	74.9
17	88.0	92.3	81.8
18	75.9	74.8	68.3