Effect of parental arterial stiffness in offspring: the Kailuan study

The aim of this study was to examine effect of parental arterial stiffness in offspring.

The individuals who participated in the second or subsequent follow-up and had parent-offspring relationship and completed measurements of brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) from the Kailuan study were recruited. The individuals were divided into groups by the 10-year intervals and sex. Arterial stiffness was defined as the 75th percentiles in each age category. Multivariable generalized estimating equations was used to analyse the effect of parental baPWV and blood pressure in offspring. Multivariable logistic regression using generalized estimating equations was used to analyse the effect of parental arterial stiffness in offspring.

A total of 4514 parents and offspring who met the inclusion criteria, including 1785 paternal offspring and 625 maternal offspring was recruited. Mean age of paternal offspring and maternal offspring were 36.26 (SD 7.86) and 36.42 (SD 7.57) years, while their mean baPWV were 1294.40 (SD 225.32) and 1270.74 (SD 241.42) cm/s, respectively. In multivariate linear regression analyses, after adjusted for the covariate risk factors, an increase of 1 cm/s in the paternal and maternal baPWV of resulted in an increase of 0.05 and 0.30 cm/s in offspring, respectively. In multivariate logistic regression analyses, the risk of arterial stiffness in the offspring of paternal and maternal arterial stiffness increased by 50 and 77%, respectively.

Paternal and maternal baPWV are linear positively correlated with baPWV in offspring. Parental arterial stiffness is a risk factor for arterial stiffness of offspring and is independent of traditional risk factors of offspring arterial stiffness.