Relation between body mass index and endothelium-dependent vasodilatation in healthy postmenopausal women

Abstract

Objective To evaluate whether endothelium-dependent vasodilatation is related to anthropometric parameters in 105 healthy postmenopausal women 47–68 years of age.Methods Flow-dependent, endothelium-dependent vasodilatation was considered as the maximal dilatation following deflation of a cuff placed on the forearm and inflated to supra-systolic blood pressure values for 4 min. Endothelium-independent vasodilatation was considered as the maximal dilatation induced by sublingual nitroglycerine (400 μg).Results Among parameters such as height, weight, body mass index (BMI), waist, hip, waist/hip ratio, lipids, glucose or insulin, only BMI, an indirect index of adiposity, was independently and directly related to baseline brachial artery diameter (b = 0.042, r = 0.269, p = 0.0055) and flow-mediated endothelium-dependent vasodilatation either expressed as net (b = 0.034, r = 0.315, p = 0.001) or percentage (b = 0.376, r = 0.202, p = 0.039) change. Stratification for BMI categories showed that women with BMI < 22 kg/m2 had an endothelium-dependent vasodilatation, significantly lower than that of women with BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 (0.711 ± 0.076 mm vs. 1.107 ± 0.141 mm; p = 0.0114). BMI was not related to endothelium-independent vasodilatation.Conclusions Present results show that, in healthy postmenopausal women, endothelium-dependent vasodilatation is related to BMI, arteries of slender women dilating less than those of their heavier counterparts. A low BMI does not appear to be beneficial for artery vasodilatation in healthy postmenopausal women.