Abstract
ObjectiveTo investigate potential associations between resting heart rate, blood pressure and the product of both, and the brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) as a maker of arterial stiffness.MethodsThe community-based “Asymptomatic Polyvascular Abnormalities in Community (APAC) Study” examined asymptomatic polyvascular abnormalities in a general Chinese population and included participants with an age of 40+ years without history of stroke and coronary heart disease. Arterial stiffness was defined as baPWV≥1400 cm/s. We measured and calculated the product of resting heart rate and systolic blood pressure (RHR-SBP) and the product of resting heart rate and mean arterial pressure (RHR-MAP).ResultsThe study included 5153 participants with a mean age of 55.1±11.8 years. Mean baPWV was 1586±400 cm/s. Significant (P<0.0001) linear relationships were found between higher baPWV and higher resting heart rate or higher arterial blood pressure, with the highest baPWV observed in individuals from the highest quartiles of resting heart rate and blood pressure. After adjusting for confounding parameters such as age, sex, educational level, body mass index, fasting blood concentrations of glucose, blood lipids and high-sensitive C-reactive protein, smoking status and alcohol consumption, prevalence of arterial stiffness increased significantly (P<0.0001) with increasing RHR-SBP quartile (Odds Ratio (OR): 2.72;95%Confidence interval (CI):1.46,5.08) and increasing RHR-MAP (OR:2.10;95%CI:1.18,3.72). Similar results were obtained in multivariate linear regression analyses with baPWV as continuous variable.ConclusionsHigher baPWV as a marker of arterial stiffness was associated with a higher product of RHR-SBP and RHR-MAP in multivariate analysis. In addition to other vascular risk factors, higher resting heart rate in combination with higher blood pressure are risk factors for arterial stiffness.
Highlights
Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity is an index of arterial stiffness and a marker of atherosclerosis that can be measured noninvasively [1,2,3,4]
We put forward the hypothesis that in addition to pulse rate and independently of other cardiovascular risk factors, the product of pulse rate multiplied with blood pressure would be correlated with Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) as a measure of arterial stiffness
Out of the 5,440 subjects who were originally included into the asymptomatic polyvascular abnormalities community study (APAC) study, we excluded 218 participants without measurements of baPWV and 69 individuals without resting heart rate (RHR) or blood pressure
Summary
Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) is an index of arterial stiffness and a marker of atherosclerosis that can be measured noninvasively [1,2,3,4]. With the increasing use of baPWV in clinical practice as measure of arterial stiffness, the importance of understanding its associations with other cardiovascular factors has increased. One may postulate that these changes, including fatigue fracture of elastin [8], are correlated with the cyclic stress caused by the frequency and amount of pulsesynchronous blood pressure fluctuations. Previous studies demonstrated that an elevated resting heart rate (RHR) was an independent risk factor for arterial stiffness [9,10,11,12,13]. We put forward the hypothesis that in addition to pulse rate and independently of other cardiovascular risk factors, the product of pulse rate multiplied with blood pressure would be correlated with baPWV as a measure of arterial stiffness. We conducted this study to examine the association between the blood pressure heart rate product and the baPWV in the asymptomatic polyvascular abnormalities community study (APAC)
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