Increased arterial stiffness in subjects with impaired fasting glucose

Abstract

Objective: Increased fasting glucose could be associated with aggravation of arterial stiffness, which is considered an early marker of atherosclerosis. The present study investigated association between fasting glucose and arterial stiffness in subjects with normal fasting glucose (NFG) and impaired fastingglucose (IFG).Methods: The study group consisted of 1043 subjects, including 683 subjects with NFG and 360 subjects with IFG (100 ≤ fasting glucose <126 mg/dL). All subjects were evaluated for glucose, insulin, lipid profiles, high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), malondialdehyde (MDA), 8-epi-prostaglandin F2α (8-epi-PGF2α) and brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (ba-PWV). Weperformed correlation and multiple linear regression analyses.Results: MDA (P<0.001) and ba-PWV (P<0.001) in the IFG group were higher than those of NFG group after adjustment for sex, age, BMI, smoking and drinking, waist, blood pressure, serum lipid profiles. Ba-PWV in the IFG group was still higher than that of NFG group after further adjustment for hs-CRP, MDA, 8-epi-PGF2α (P=0.031). Through multiple linear regression analysis, ba-PWV was found to be independently and positively associated with fasting glucose, age, systolic blood pressure, triglyceride, hs-CRP andinsulin and negatively associated with male: female ratio, BMI.Conclusion: Arterial stiffness was higher in the IFG group than subjects with NFG even after adjustment for all confounding variables including hs-CRPand oxidative stress markers. In addition, fasting glucose and insulin werepositively and independently associated with the ba-PWV in non-diabetichealthy adults.