Response to: ‘Reshape of the arterial wall as a slow reacting vascular structure’

Abstract

We sincerely thank Prof. Schmidt-Trucksass for his constructive comments on our recent paper in Atherosclerosis [1], in which issues were raised related to the rapidity of change in wall thickness (WT). Some years ago, we were similarly ‘surprised’ when we observed a significant increase in carotid and femoral artery WT after only 8 weeks bed rest, and that this increase was (partly) prevented by resistive vibration exercise. [2] We hypothesised that, because of the significant number of smooth muscle cells in the medial-layer, vascular tone may importantly influence measurements of WT. In a subsequent study [3], we confirmed this hypothesis by continuously recording carotid and femoral artery WT in young and older subjects before and after administration of sublingual nitroglycerine. Accordingly, these observations somewhat changed our view that WT is solely a measure of arterial structure. One issue raised by Prof. Schmidt-Trucksass was the observation of similar changes in femoral and carotid artery WT, despite the remarkable difference in exercise-induced perfusion between both vessels. Whilst the impact of perfusion (or shear stress) on arterial