Research Article A Body Shape Index and Heart Rate Variability in Healthy Indians with Low Body Mass Index Sharma Sowmya, 1 Tinku Thomas, 2 Ankalmadagu Venkatsubbareddy Bharathi, 3 and Sambashivaiah Sucharita 1,3 1 Department of Physiology, St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore 560034, India 2 Division of Epidemiology and Statistics, St. John’s Research Institute, Bangalore 560034, India 3 Clinical Physiology Unit, Department of Physiology, St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore 560034, India Correspondence should be addressed to Sambashivaiah Sucharita; sucharita.dr@gmail.com Received 30 June 2014; Accepted 12 September 2014; Published 2 October 2014 Academic Editor: C. S. Johnston Copyright © 2014 Sharma Sowmya et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. One third of Indian population is said to be sufering from chronic energy defciency (CED), with increased risk of developing chronic diseases. A new anthropometric measure called A Body Shape Index (ABSI) is said to be a better index in predicting risks for premature mortality. ABSI is also in part said to be a surrogate of visceral fat. Objective. Te present study aimed to explore the association between indices of HRV (heart rate variability), BMI, WC, and ABSI in healthy Indian males with low BMI (BMI < 18.5 kg/m 2 ) and to compare with normal BMI group (BMI 18.5 to 24.9 kg/m 2 ). Methodology. ABSI and BMI were derived from anthropometric parameters, namely, height, weight, and waist circumference in 178 males aged 18 to 78 years. Subjects were categorized into two groups based on their BMI. Results and Conclusions. Power spectral analysis of HRV demonstrated a signifcant negative correlation between Log HF (high frequency) and ABSI in both low BMI [−24.2 (9.4),  < 0.05] and normal BMI group [−23.41 (10.1),  < 0.05] even afer controlling for age. Tus even with slight increase in BMI among low BMI individuals, there could be a greater risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. 1. Introduction Obesity has been the center of focus of majority of body composition related studies. Tis is partly due to a large body of data available from western population where obesity is considered a major public health concern [1–3]. Epidemiological studies with longitudinal follow-up have demonstrated association between simple anthropometric measures like height, weight (body mass index: BMI), and waist circumference (WC) with cardiovascular risks [3, 4]. Within a given BMI range, association with increased car- diovascular risks becomes even stronger as WC increases [5]. Studies have linked alterations in autonomic nervous activity with increased cardiovascular risk [6]. Heart rate variability (HRV) is a simple noninvasive, sensitive measure to evaluate autonomic system activity. Changes in HRV have been demonstrated to detect even subclinical states [7, 8]. Decreased heart rate variability (both low and high fre- quency) has been observed in obese, compared to individuals with normal BMI [9–11]. Pockets of data available from Indian population are not diferent from those of western data [12, 13]. However, India has an additional burden of chronic energy defciency with one-third of population being of low BMI [14]. Recent evidence based on HRV measures from our laboratory demonstrated decreased HRV in undernourished subjects when compared to well-nourished/normal BMI group [15]. It has been speculated that undernourished/low BMI individuals might have more of visceral adiposity or ectopic fat than subcutaneous fat [16]. Although WC has been suggested as being superior to BMI in predicting car- diovascular risks in obese [17], its ability to predict increased cardiovascular risk in individuals with low BMI needs to be explored. Further, WC is highly sensitive to body size and fat distribution and is correlated with BMI. Tus, diferentiating Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism Volume 2014, Article ID 865313, 6 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/865313