Arterial compliance changes in diabetic normotensive patients after angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition therapy.

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is known to cause increased arterial wall stiffness and increased cardiovascular risk, even in the absence of hypertension. This study was designed to investigate whether use of an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor may improve arterial stiffness in normotensive diabetics, using pulse wave velocity (PWV) as a surrogate marker.

Methods: We studied 42 patients (26 with type 2 DM, aged 56.