Abstract
The purpose was to investigate the effects of artificial cold air on cardiovascular risk in hypertensive subjects. An artificial cold air was simulated with hourly ambient temperature data of a real moderate cold air in China. Twenty-four male SHR rats were randomly divided into the minimum temperature (Tmin) group, the rewarming temperature (Tr) group and two concurrent control groups with six rats in each (Tmin and Tr represent two cold air time points, respectively). Tmin and Tr groups were exposed to the cold air that was stopped at Tmin and Tr, respectively. After cold air exposure, blood pressure, heart rate and body weight were monitored, blood was collected for the detection of some indexes like fibrinogen, total cholesterol and uric acid. Results demonstrated that blood pressure, whole blood viscosity, blood fibrinogen, total cholesterol and uric acid increased significantly both in the Tmin and Tr groups; low density lipoprotein/high density lipoprotein increased significantly only in Tr group; there was higher level of blood fibrinogen in the Tr group than the Tmin group; higher levels of creatine kinase-MB was found in both the Tmin and Tr groups. These results suggest that cold air may increase the cardiovascular risks in hypertensive subjects indirectly through its effects on the sympathetic nervous system and renin angiotensin system, blood pressure and atherosclerosis risk factors like blood viscosity and fibrinogen, lipids and uric acid in the blood.
Highlights
Epidemiological studies and clinical observations have demonstrated that cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) like myocardial infarction (MI) and coronary heart disease (CHD) events increase significantly in winter and cold weather
Cold air increased the level of atherosclerosis risk factors both in the Tmin and Tr groups, which indicates that CVDs risk may increase in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) rats during cold air exposure
Atherosclerosis risk factors like higher blood pressure, whole blood viscosity (WBV), plasma FG, TC and uric acid were all higher in the treatment groups than control groups
Summary
Epidemiological studies and clinical observations have demonstrated that cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) like myocardial infarction (MI) and coronary heart disease (CHD) events increase significantly in winter and cold weather. Studies have reported the increase of blood viscosity, fibrinogen and cholesterol in subjects after cold stress and in winter [4,5,6,7] As they are the promoters of atherosclerosis, the increased MI and CHD events in cold weather may be connected with them. The possible mechanism for the cold to increase MI and CHD events may be the combined effect of an activated sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and increased atherosclerosis risk factors, in the subjects with CHD or MI. This study aimed to explore the effect of cold weather on cardiovascular system risk factors in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR)
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