Different relation between 24-h blood pressure and distensibility at different peripheral arteries. Data from the European Lacidipine Study on Atherosclerosis (ELSA)

Abstract

These data suggest that stiffening of large elastic artery is reflected more by ambulatory than office BP elevations, systolic BP being much more important than diastolic. Alterations of large elastic arteries function is related to structural wall changes. Functional and structural properties of middle-size muscle arteries are independent of BP.

Relationship between arterial distensibility and coronary atherosclerosis in angina patients

“…'Functional' mechanisms include a reduction in endothelial secretion of nitric oxide and a sympathetic activation [12,20,21], which is presumably followed by contraction of smooth muscle in the arterial wall and an increase of its elastic modulus compared to the relaxed state. Structural mechanisms include an increased synthesis of nondistensible tissue, such as collagen [22], as well as a vascular remodeling that increases wall thickness [13,23,24]. However, in the present study, the relationship between the decrease in AO Dist and the diseased coronary status persisted after adjustment from between-group differences, such as gender, age and systolic blood pressure.…”

“…This is one more example of Dist in middlesized muscle arteries having a peculiar behaviour, which also includes a lack of stiffening in response to aging and hypertension [24,27]. It also further demonstrates that the mechanisms modulating structural and functional components of arterial mechanical properties vary along the arterial tree.…”

Increased stiffness and cell–matrix interactions of abdominal aorta in two experimental nonhypertensive models

“…Apart from hypertension and vascular disease such as atherosclerosis, increased blood pressure variability might be a possible mechanism of increased arterial stiffness as recently reported in humans [31][32][33] and rats [15]. Indeed, we and others have shown that both models are characterized by an increase in blood pressure variability [4,5,12,34].…”

Combined effects of office and 24-h blood pressure on aortic stiffness in human hypertension

“…In 22 patients with sustained essential hypertension, aortic PWV was significantly related to ambulatory, but not office, BP [15]. Similarly, in 124 hypertensive patients from the European Lacidipine Study on Atherosclerosis study, Giannattasio et al [30] have shown that carotid artery wall distensibility had a stronger negative correlation with 24-h than with office systolic BP, although no statistical comparison was allowed between the two above relations, and the small sample size limits the generalizability of those findings. Self-measured home pulse pressure was a better correlate of aortic PWV than office pulse pressure in a crosssectional study [31].…”