Table 3.

Descriptive analysis of studies with non-continuous data.

Outcome and no. of RCTs	Only in AS group	No difference between AS and controls
Heart rate N = 25	Reduction: 3 (Ceccherelli et al., 1981; Steenbergen et al., 2015; Luo et al., 2016)	22 (Johnson et al., 1991; Wang and Kain, 2001; Usichenko et al., 2005, 2006, 2007, 2020; Black et al., 2011; Wetzel et al., 2011; Hein et al., 2013; Capone et al., 2015, 2017; Sellaro et al., 2015; Badran et al., 2018; Burger et al., 2018; Wagenseil et al., 2018; Nakahara et al., 2019; Villani et al., 2019; Borges et al., 2020; Hendawy and Abuelnaga, 2020; Kovacic et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2020; Koenig et al., 2021)
Blood pressure N = 22	Reduction: 4 (Ceccherelli et al., 1981; Luo et al., 2016; Hendawy and Abuelnaga, 2020; Usichenko et al., 2020)	19 (Johnson et al., 1991; Wang and Kain, 2001; Usichenko et al., 2005, 2006, 2007, 2020; Black et al., 2011; Wetzel et al., 2011; Taylor et al., 2013; Laqua et al., 2014; Yeo et al., 2014; Capone et al., 2015, 2017; Sellaro et al., 2015; Villani et al., 2019; Gauthey et al., 2020; Kovacic et al., 2020; Staley et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2020)
Heart rate variability N = 10	Increase: 2 (Arai et al., 2013; Bretherton et al., 2019)	8 (Napadow et al., 2012; Burger et al., 2016, 2018, 2019; de Couck et al., 2017; Borges et al., 2019; Gauthey et al., 2020; Koenig et al., 2021)
High frequency power N = 4	Increase: 2 (Sclocco et al., 2019; Zhu et al., 2021) Reduction: 1 (Stavrakis et al., 2020)	1 (Laqua et al., 2014)
Low frequency power N = 2	Increase: 1 (Stavrakis et al., 2020) Reduction: 1 (Zhu et al., 2021)	0
Oxygen Saturation N = 3	0	3 (Karst et al., 2007; Strong et al., 2016; Dellovo et al., 2019)