Asthma is characterized by obstruction to expiratory airflow, reversible, and respiratory symptoms such as shortness of breath, wheezing and coughing. In addition to these, asthmatic individuals often present systemic repercussions of the disease, with changes in the cardiovascular system being particularly common, particularly changes in cardiac autonomic control.

To compare the behavior of cardiac autonomic modulation at rest in controlled and healthy asthmatic women.

After ethical approval, 34 female participants were included, non-smokers, aged between 18 and 40 years, with and without a medical diagnosis of asthma. The participants underwent analysis of their heart rate at rest for 10 minutes, using a chest sensor that records cardiac signals. After completion of collection, the data was stored and transferred to the software for analysis in the time domain: mean heart rate interval (Mean iRR), mean heart rate (Mean HR), square root of the mean squared differences of the RR intervals (RMSSD) and pNN50 and time domain: low frequency (LF) domain indices that indicate sympathetic modulation, high frequency (HF): parasympathetic activity and the LF/HF: sympathovagal balance. The Shapiro-Wilk test was applied to verify the distribution of data, which were expressed as mean and standard deviation (SD) values. To analyze the results, the Independent Student's T Test was used.

During the rest period, there was a predominance of sympathetic activity in asthmatic women observed through the LF time variable (61 ± 16 vs 40 ± 14) and lower values of parasympathetic activity, verified through the HF index (38 ± 16 vs 59 ± 14), when compared with healthy participants, respectively. Additionally, lower RMSSD values, representing parasympathetic, were found in asthmatic participants (39±28 vs 65±45) and higher Mean HR values (74±13 vs 69±10) and lower Mean iRR values (826±142 vs 882±121) were observed in asthmatic women, respectively.

Asthmatic women present changes in the behavior of cardiac autonomic modulation at rest, showing greater sympathetic activity, which differs from what was expected. For future research, we suggest investigating different classifications of asthma, as well as comparing men and women.

These results may open new possibilities for additional studies and encourage the implementation of individualized protocols for this population.