clinicaltrials.gov NCT01836380.

Although the associations between chronic levels of arterial stiffness and blood pressure (BP) have been fairly well studied, it is not clear whether and how much arterial stiffness is influenced by acute perturbations in BP. The primary aim of this study was to determine magnitudes of BP dependence of various measures of arterial stiffness during acute BP perturbation maneuvers. Fifty apparently healthy subjects, including 25 young (20-40 yr) and 25 older adults (60-80 yr), were studied. A variety of BP perturbations, including head-up tilt, head-down tilt, mental stress, isometric handgrip exercise, and cold pressor test, were used to encompass BP changes induced by physical, mental, and/or mechanical stimuli. When each index of arterial stiffness was plotted with mean BP, all arterial stiffness indices, including cardio-ankle vascular index or CAVI (r = 0.50), carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity or cfPWV (r = 0.51), brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity or baPWV (r = 0.61), arterial compliance (r = -0.42), elastic modulus (r = 0.52), arterial distensibility (r = -0.32), β-stiffness index (r = 0.19), and Young's modulus (r = 0.35) were related to mean BP (all P < 0.01). Changes in CAVI, cfPWV, baPWV, and elastic modulus were significantly associated with changes in mean BP in the pooled conditions, while changes in arterial compliance, arterial distensibility, β-stiffness index, and Young's modulus were not. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that BP changes in response to various forms of pressor stimuli were associated with the corresponding changes in arterial stiffness indices and that the strengths of associations with BP varied widely depending on what arterial stiffness indices were examined.

A relatively short-term Bikram yoga intervention improved arterial stiffness in young but not older adults and significantly reduced insulin resistance index in older but not young adults.

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These results suggest that the techniques used to assess arterial stiffness may not be interchangeable in clinical and research settings and that comparisons of findings obtained with different arterial stiffness measures should be conducted with caution.

We concluded that the solitary manipulation of conventional dairy products in the normal routine diet would modulate blood pressure in middle-aged and older adults with prehypertension and hypertension. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01577030.

Purpose: Ischemic preconditioning (IPC) has been used to protect myocardial cells against ischemiareperfusion injury and is recently utilized for improving exercise performance. It is unknown whether remote IPC (RIPC) to tissues not involved in exercise can induce similar exercise improvements and what "dose" of IPC is necessary to induce exercise performance benefits. This study determined if unilateral and bilateral upper limb RIPC improves lower body anaerobic power output. Methods: Using two randomized, sham-controlled, crossover study designs, we studied 43 recreationally-active adults. For study 1, unilateral RIPC was used, while for study 2, the ischemic stimuli was increased to bilateral occlusion. After either the RIPC or sham control treatment, subjects completed four 30 s Wingate anaerobic tests on a Monark cycle ergometer with 2 min passive rest between trials. Results: In the unilateral occlusion trial, peak power, mean power, and fatigue index were not different between the two conditions at every Wingate test. In the bilateral occlusion trial, mean power was greater in the RIPC condition during the first Wingate test compared with the sham control (both p<0.05). Additionally, peak power was elevated following the RIPC condition versus the sham control for the final Wingate test (p<0.05). Conclusion: Remote ischemic preconditioning applied bilaterally increased lower body power output over a series of Wingate anaerobic tests. Unilateral RIPC, however, had no effect on any of the performance variables, suggesting that there is a threshold for the amount of target tissues needed to elicit anaerobic performance benefits.

No abstract