Association between left-handedness and cardiac autonomic function in healthy young men.
BACKGROUND
Effects of nonright-handedness on risk for sudden death associated with coronary artery disease via sympathetic imbalance contributed to ventricular arrhythmogenesis previously have been demonstrated. This study hypothesized that left-handedness might be associated with cardiac autonomic functions in healthy young men. The aim of this study was to examine the association between left-handedness and cardiac autonomic functions in healthy young men.


METHODS
A total of 992 asymptomatic young male subjects underwent routine health checkup between May 2012 and July 2013, and were included in this study. All were submitted to a standard protocol that included a complete clinical examination, laboratory evaluation, 12-lead electrocardiogram, and 2D-echocardiogram. Fifty-two subjects were left-handed; 32 subjects had abnormal QRS-T angle. Statistical analyses were performed using statistical package SPSS 15.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) and statistical significance was assessed at the two-tailed 0.05 threshold.


RESULTS
A total of 52 (5%) subjects were left-handed; 32 (3%) subjects had an abnormal frontal QRS-T angle. The mean age, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting glucose, current smoking, estimated glomerular filtration rate, hemoglobin, leukocyte count, platelet count, and echocardiographic parameters were not different between two groups. But subjects with left-handedness had greater prevalence of abnormal QRS-T angle. The left-handedness group had 18 subjects with abnormal QRS-T angle (34%) and the right-handedness group had 14 subjects with abnormal QRS-T angle (1.4%). The difference between two groups was significant (P < 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
In this study, there was a significant association between left-handedness and abnormal QRS-T angle in healthy young subjects.
Department of Cardiology, Diyarbakir Military Hospital, Yenişehir/Diyarbakir, Diyarbakir, Turkey.
Sinan
S
Işcen
Salim
S
Özenç
Urat
U
Tavlasoglu
D000328:Adult; D001341:Autonomic Nervous System / Q000502:physiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male
abnormal QRS-T angle; cardiac autonomic function; left-handedness