Association of cardiovascular risk factors and brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity

Objective To investigate the major cardiovascular risk factors affecting big arterial elasticity and the effect of combined miltiple risk factors on it.Methods Automatic pulse wave velocity(PWV) measuring system was applied to examine brachial-ankle PWV(BaPWV).Subjects were categorized into abnormal BaPWV group and control group according to the level of BaPWV.The former group was further divided into four subgroups(0to3) based on the number of risk factors.Results The level of age,totle cholesterol(TC),fasting blood glucose(FBG),Systolic blood pressure(SBP),diastolic blood pressure(DBP),Mean artery pressure(MAP),Pulse pressure(PP),Heart rate(HR) in abnormal BaPWV were higher than those in control group whereas BaPWV itself was higher than that in cintrol group(P0.05).Age,TC,FBG,SBP,DBP,MAP,PP were significantly correlated with BaPWV.A stepwise multiple regression analysis demomstrated that age and SBP were positively related to BaPWV independently.With the clusters of risk factors increasing BaPWV was increasing.Conclusion The elevation of age and SBP were the major cardiovascular risk factors on reduction of big arterial elasticity,with multiple risk factors concurrent effect,they could decrease big arterial elasticity much more significantly.