Arterial pulse wave velocity, Fourier pulsatility index, and blood lipid profiles

Increased arterial pulse wave velocity (PWV) and decreased Doppler-shifted Fourier pulsatility index (PI) have been utilized clinically to diagnose the presence and severity of peripheral vascular disease. We have examined the relationships between these two diagnostic indices and several lipoprotein atherogenic risk factors, e.g., serum total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), and low-density lipo-protein-cholesterol (LDL-C) among 74 healthy male volunteers, aged 20 to 56 yr. The Doppler signal from the radial artery was digitized and processed with the Hamming window and 512-point fast Fourier transform to obtain frequency power spectra and PI index by a desktop computer. PWV was determined on the computer by dividing the distance between two pressure transducers placed over the radial and carotid arteries by the transit time difference between the maximal first derivatives (dP/dt) of the recorded arterial pulse waves. The results indicated that PI was inversely related to TC, LDL-C, and TG (r = -0.50, -0.41, -0.54, respectively, P less than 0.001), but evidenced a positive relationship with the HDL-C/TC ratio (r = 0.69, P less than 0.001). PWV was also significantly correlated to TC (r = 0.40) and TG (r = 0.42), but was inversely associated with the HDL-C/TC ratio (r = -0.45, P less than 0.001). These findings are consistent with the current theory relating lipids to the pathology of atherosclerosis.