Causal inference and underlying mechanism between heart rate variability (cardiac autonomic function), mental health conditions and cardiovascular disease

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mental health disorders both are complex diseases resulting from a complicated interaction of biological and environmental factors. For example depression and CVD remain the most common cause of death among the European population and when comorbid, they have a higher risk of other complications, impaired quality of life more severely, and increased mortality. Heart rate variability (HRV) has been regarded as a reliable indicator of cardiac autonomic function in healthy individuals and patients suffering from various cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular disorders. Furthermore, HRV-related traits, CVD, and mental health disorders are all heritable. Thus, the genetic epidemiological research of these complex comorbidities is of great significance. 
Lifelines is a multi-disciplinary prospective population-based cohort study examining in a unique three-generation design the health and health-related behaviors of 167,729 persons living in the North of the Netherlands. It employs a broad range of investigative procedures in assessing the biomedical, socio-demographic, behavioral, physical and psychological factors that contribute to the health and disease of the general population, with a special focus on multi-morbidity and complex genetics. Moreover, our team has already published the newest GWAS of HRV (in 2023) and the biggest meta-analysis of GWAS for the HRV (in 2017) 21.“Healthy aging” is a lifelong process that begins even before you are born, with parents passing on their genes to the next generation and taking risks and opportunities for healthy living with them. Meanwhile, lifestyle, dietary patterns, and environmental factors may affect the development of health. Therefore, it is important to understand the impact of these factors and how they interact with each other. Our research focuses on identifying the underlying mechanisms and potential causal associations between HRV-related traits, mental and cardiovascular health, which could help develop co-morbidity prevention strategies via intervention in relation to nongenetic modifiable factors if we know the genetic-related mechanism, in that case, the average duration of individual’s health could be extended.