Relationship between sedentary behavior and endothelial dysfunction in a cross-sectional study in China.

Abstract

We recruited 13,220 participants from two health management centers of general tertiary hospitals located in northern and southern China between 2017 and 2021. All participants had undergone both questionnaires and brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD) measurements. In total, 3,205 participants with FMD ≤ 5.0% were identified to have endothelial dysfunction. In a multivariable regression model including lifestyle habits such as sedentary behavior and cardiovascular risk factors, taking leisure sedentary time <2 h/day as a reference, the risk of vascular endothelial dysfunction gradually increased with time: 2-4 h/day (OR = 1.182, 95% CI: 1.058-1.321, P = 0.003), 4-6 h/day (OR = 1.248, 95% CI: 1.100-1.414, P = 0.001) and >6 h/day (OR = 1.618, 95% CI: 1.403-1.866, P < 0.001). Longer leisure sedentary time is associated with a higher prevalence of vascular endothelial dysfunction. These findings suggest that leisure sedentary behavior is a risk factor for the occurrence of vascular endothelial dysfunction in the Chinese check-up population.