Carotid atherosclerosis and cardiovascular risk factors: a comparison of residents of a rural area of Okinawa with residents of a typical suburban area of Fukuoka, Japan

Metabolic Syndrome Amplifies the LDL-Cholesterol Associated Increases in Carotid Atherosclerosis

“…There have been several Japanese epidemiologic studies; an association between carotid atherosclerosis and several components of metabolic syndrome, as observed in the present study, has been reported in another study (12). In these studies, multiple regression analysis found independent relationships between carotid atherosclerosis and age, male sex, HT, LDL-C, HDL-C, and history of DM.…”

“…Several studies have shown close associations between this parameter and conventional cardiovascular risk factors, including age, obesity, smoking, HT, dyslipidemia including lowdensity lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and diabetes mellitus (DM) (11,12). However, the association between carotid IMT and LDL-C and metabolic syndrome have not been well studied.…”

Risk Factors for and the Prevalence of Peripheral Arterial Disease and its Relationship to Carotid Atherosclerosis: The Kyushu and Okinawa Population Study (KOPS)

“…High-resolution B-mode ultrasound examination was performed with a 7.5 MHz mechanical sector transducer on the Aloka SSD-2000 (Aloka Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) by four specially trained ultrasound technicians 2,3) . CA-IMT was defined as the distance between two echogenic lines separated by a hypoechoic or anechoic space, with the outer line corresponding to the medial-adventitial border and the inner line representing the luminal-intimal border.…”

“…Japanese lifestyle changes have led to the recent increase of atherosclerosis, which is related to hypertension, dyslipidemia, glucose intolerance, and obesity, which are also increasing [1][2][3] . Many risk factors are involved in the occurrence of atherosclerosis, which manifests as cerebrovascular disease, coronary artery disease, and peripheral arterial disease (PAD) 4,5) .…”

“…We have examined and reported on CA-IMT in a number of areas of southwestern Japan 2,3) . In previous studies, CA-IMT has been associated with cardiovascular disease and stroke and has shown significant associations with PAD 5,6,[15][16][17] ; however, little is known about the relationship between PAD and CA-IMT of Japanese 14) .…”