Phenotypes of vascular aging in young people, taking into account the level of blood pressure
Authors: Evsevyeva M , Rostovtseva M , Fursova E , Galkova I , Kudryavtseva V , Shchendrigin I 
Published: May 2021

Funding Acknowledgements

Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): State Task

Introduction. Assessment of vascular age (VA), based on the determination of the arterial stiffness (AS), is attracting more and more attention of specialists, since this risk factor (FR) has  proven the reclassifying and prognostic potential. The definition of VA is of particular importance for young people (YP), as they may have  the high relative cardiovascular  risk with low absolute risk. However, until now, this contingent has not been studied in the aspect of  possible association of AS and blood pressure (BP) levels.  The aim - to assess the representation of the different phenotypes of VA in YP, depending on  level of  BP, taking into account gender. Material and methods. 250 YP (88 boys and 162 girls) aged from 18 to 25 years were examined on basis of the University Health Center within framework of the National Preventive Project "University - Territory of Health". Angiological screening was performed using  VaSera VS-1500 device (Fukuda Denshi, Japan), which allows  to evaluate such an indicator AS as  cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI). Since the values on left side were higher than on right side, the results are presented according to CAVI-L. All YP are divided into tercile groups according to CAVI, taking into account gender. This stiffness indicator, unlike others, does not depend on the level of BP acting on arterial wall at the time of registration of the pulse wave. In accordance with  opinion of experts, such interval analysis in sample homogeneous by sex and age allows us to identify carriers of the phenotypes of early or premature VA (upper CAVI-tercile group), normal VA  (middle CAVI-tercile grope) and favorable or healthy VA ( first CAVI-tercile group). Early VA is also called EVA syndrome. The group of elevated office BP was formed from carriers of high normal (HN) BP (130-139/85-89 mm Hg) and arterial hypertension(AH) (140/90 mm Hg and above); еhe group of normal office pressure from individuals with BP of 129/84 mm Hg and below. Data processing was carried out using  software package "Statistica 10.0" ( StatSoft Inc, USA).  Results. It was found that from the first to  the third CAVI-tercile group of 41 normotensive  young men turned out to be 14(34,1%), 12(29,3%), 15(36,6%) at P = 0.657 and out of 47 hypertensive  young men 15(31,9%), 17(36,2%), 15(31,9%) at P = 0.785. In these tercile groups of 135 normotensive girls  was found  to be 43(31,8%), 45(33,4%), 47(34,8%) at P = 0.852 and out of 27 hypertensive girls  11(40,7%) 9(33,4%), 7(25,9%) at p = 0.348. These data indicate that among young carriers of both office normotension and office HNBP/AH, the EVA phenotype was almost as common as the phenotypes of normal VA and favorable VA. This applied to both boys and girls about equally. Conclusion. The obtained results indicate  expediency of using angiological screening to early identify phenotypes of VA in the framework of preventive measures among young people, regardless of the level of their initial office BP.