Combined aerobic and resistance training improves microcirculation in metabolic syndrome.

Background: Exercise intervention improves macrovascular function in metabolic syndrome (MeS) patients, but few studies have evaluated the effect of exercise on microcirculatory dysfunction, which plays a key role in the development of MeS and its correlated organ damage. We carried out this intervention study to evaluate the influence of an aerobic and resistance training on skin microvascular reactivity in MeS patients.

Methods: Postocclusive reactive hyperemia (PORH) of the forearm skin was evaluated, by laser-Doppler flowmetry, before and after a 12-week program of aerobic and resistance training in 15 MeS patients referring to our Lipid Metabolism Outpatients Clinic, together with anthropometric, fitness and metabolic parameters; 15 matched MeS patients who did not exercise, served as a control group.

Prognostic value of low and high ankle-brachial index in hospitalized medical patients.

Background: Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is frequently underdiagnosed in the clinical practice, leading to a lack of opportunity to detect subjects at a high risk for cardiovascular (CV) death. The ankle-brachial pressure index (ABI) represents a noninvasive, objective tool to diagnose PAD and to predict adverse outcome.

Methods: ABI was determined by means of Doppler velocimetry, in 707 patients, aged 50 years or older, consecutively hospitalized in an internal medicine ward, who were followed-up for at least 12 months in order to assess all-cause and CV mortality.

Prognostic impact of prolonged ventricular repolarization in hypertension.

Background: QT interval prolongation on the surface electrocardiogram (ECG) predicts cardiovascular complications in high-risk subjects, but its prognostic role in uncomplicated hypertension has been understudied.

Methods: For up to 13 years (average, 5.3 years), we followed up 2110 white patients with initially untreated essential hypertension (mean +/- SD age, 49 +/- 12 years; 55% men) without prevalent cardiovascular or renal disease who underwent 12-lead ECG before therapy.

Capillary rarefaction and abnormal cardiovascular reactivity in hypertension.

Objective: To determine the effects of capillary rarefaction on cardiovascular reactivity and microcirculatory functioning in essential hypertension.

Design: Hypertension is associated with abnormal cardiovascular reactivity and increased vasoconstriction. Capillary rarefaction amplifies these abnormalities, which modify microcirculatory hemodynamics.