Abstract P204: Growth and Moderators of Pulse Wave Velocity From Childhood to Adulthood

Background: Increased arterial stiffness measured by pulse wave velocity (PWV) has been shown to be an important parameter in the assessment of cardiovascular risk. However little is known about its longitudinal development from childhood to adulthood and its possible sociodemographic, anthropometric, hemodynamic and behavioral moderators. Methods and Results: Individual growth curves of carotid-distal PWV across age were created for 559 African American and European American males and females with a maximum of 5 assessments over a 13-year period (age, 13.7-37.3). African Americans and males had significantly higher PWV than did European Americans and females (Ps<0.01), respectively. A 3-way interaction (P<0.01) between age, gender and ethnicity was observed with African American males displaying a larger rate of increase in PWV with age than the other 3 ethnic and gender groups. The ethnicity and gender effects on PWV persisted when controlling for other moderators. Waist circumstance was the strongest anthropometric predictor but its effect on PWV was only significant in females. Mean arterial pressure was the strongest hemodynamic predictor, marital status of parents was the strongest socioeconomic predictor, and illegal drug use was the strongest behavioral predictor of PWV. The best-fitting full model explained in total 61.6% of the between-subject variance in PWVwith ethnicity, genderand age explaining25%. Conclusion: We observed significant ethnic and gender differences in longitudinal trajectories of PWV in youth and young adults. Apart from these ethnicity and gender effects, individual differences in PWV growth can largely be explained by mean arterial pressure, waist circumstance, marital status and illegal drug use.