How your heart rate is linked to being a criminal: Young men with a low resting beat are '39% more likely to commit a crime'  

  • These teenagers were 39% more likely to be convicted of a violent crime
  • Scientists think this is due to the psychological impact of a slow heartbeat
  • Those with a slow heartbeat may find it hard to become excited or aroused
  • This means they might seek more stimulating experiences and take risks 

By Ben Spencer, Medical Correspondent For The Daily Mail

Published: 10:12 EST, 9 September 2015 | Updated: 11:59 EST, 9 September 2015

A low resting pulse is usually a sign of good health - a marker of a strong heart and efficient circulation system.

But scientists have found that teenage boys with a slow heart rate are more likely to become criminals when they grow up.

In a study of more than 700,000 men, those with the lowest resting heart rate when they were teenagers were 39 per cent more likely to be later convicted of a violent crime than those with the highest pulses.

Teenage boys with a slow heart rate are more 39 per cent more likely to be convicted of a violent crime when they grow up, according to a new study (file photo)

Teenage boys with a slow heart rate are more 39 per cent more likely to be convicted of a violent crime when they grow up, according to a new study (file photo)

While normal adults have resting heart rates between 60 and 100 beats per minute, hearts of some people can beat only 30 times per minute or even less at night time when there can be long pauses between heart beats.

Scientists suspect that the link is caused by the psychological impact of having a slow heartbeat.

People whose hearts beat slowly are thought to find it hard to become excited or aroused - meaning they might seek more stimulating experiences and take more risks.

The condition has previously been linked to anti-social behaviour in children and adolescents but until now little was known about resting heart rate as a predictor of severe violence.

Understanding the biological risk factors could help prevention and intervention efforts.

Study leader Dr Antti Latvala, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said: ‘Our results confirm in addition to being associated with aggressive and antisocial outcomes in childhood and adolescence, low resting heart rate increases the risk for violent and non-violent antisocial behaviours in adulthood.’

Dr Latvala and colleagues analysed data from 710,264 Swedish men born from 1958 to 1991, who were followed for up to 35 years.

The participants’ resting heart rate and blood pressure were measured at mandatory military conscription testing at the age of 18. 

People with a slow heartbeat may find it difficult to become excited or aroused easily and so might seek out more stimulating or risky experiences, scientists said (file photo)

People with a slow heartbeat may find it difficult to become excited or aroused easily and so might seek out more stimulating or risky experiences, scientists said (file photo)

The results, published last night in the medical journal JAMA Psychiatry, revealed that 40,093 were later convicted of a violent crime.

The authors compared the results of the men with a resting heart rate of greater than 82 beats per minute, to those with less than 60 beats per minute.

The group with the slower teenage heart rate had a 39 per cent higher chance of later being convicted of violent crimes. They were also 25 per cent more likely to be convicted of non-violent crimes.

Professor Adrian Raine, a criminologist at Pennsylvania University, described the study as ‘exceptional’.

He said: ‘We now have knowledge a person’s lower resting heart rate raises - albeit weakly - the odds of an individual committing future offences beyond his or her control.

‘Can the criminal justice system continue to turn a blind eye to the anatomy of violence?’ 

 

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