The impact of metabolic syndrome and its components on pulse wave velocity

Kim, Young Kwon

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Pulse wave velocity (PWV) reflects arterial stiffness and may represent an integrated index of vascular status and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Although the individual components of the metabolic syndrome (MS) are well established cardiovascular risk factors, the impact of the MS and its components on PWV has not been well defined.
METHODS
With an automatic wave form analyzer, heart-femoral (hf) and brachial-ankle (ba) PWVs were measured simultaneously in 364 subjects (age, 44.8 +/- 9.3 years). None of the subjects had clinical CVD except hypertension, diabetes and systemic disease. The associations between PWVs and the features of the MS -individual and clustered- were analyzed.
RESULTS
In univariate analysis, the individual components of the MS except a low HDL-cholesterol level were associated with increased hfPWV and baPWV. Hypercholesterolemia was also associated with increased both PWVs. A low HDL-cholesterol level was associated with increased baPWV. However, in multivariate analysis, none of the components of the MS except elevated blood pressure (BP) was the independent factor affecting hfPWV and baPWV. After controlling for age and gender, hfPWV and baPWV were increased according to the number of the components of the MS (p<0.001 for both). After controlling for age, gender and BP, the MS was associated with increased baPWV (p<0.05).
CONCLUSION
The clustering of the components of the MS may interact to synergistically impact arterial stiffness, even though the individual components except elevated BP do not affect arterial stiffness independently.