Kawoomba comments on Measuring lethality in reduced expected heartbeats

Kawoomba 3 Jan 2014 14:36 UTC
19 points

So you can translate, say, smoking a cigarette into a cost of about 1800 expected heartbeats (or about 80 seconds of life expectancy).

You got tachycardia or somethin’?
- faul_sname 3 Jan 2014 20:56 UTC
  6 points
  Parent
  No, chaosmage is just a very active hummingbird. Hitting keys on the keyboard takes work when you only weigh 10 grams.
  
  (1800 heartbeats in 80 seconds is 1500 beats per minute, as opposed to the human average of around 80 beats per minute)
- AlexMennen 3 Jan 2014 19:12 UTC
  4 points
  Parent
  This comment made me notice a flaw in measuring lifespan in heartbeats: inducing tachycardia would increase the number of heartbeats you experience (unless it decreases your actual lifespan by more than that).
  - Wes_W 3 Jan 2014 19:21 UTC
    0 points
    Parent
    Resting heart rate is negatively correlated with cardiovascular fitness: the lower, the better. So far as I know, the point of measuring lifespan in heartbeats is that tachycardia does in fact kill you that much faster. I am not a medical professional, and it’s probably not wise to take “conservation of lifetime heartbeats” too literally, but that’s the general idea.
    - gjm 3 Jan 2014 20:05 UTC
      4 points
      Parent
      I’m fairly sure it isn’t proportional: someone with a heart rate of 40bpm isn’t going to live twice as long as someone with a heart rate of 80bpm. (But might well live 3x longer than someone with a heart rate of 120bpm, which I guess would indicate a serious medical problem.)
      
      I’m not an expert, though, and will gladly be corrected on this.