Lifetime Risk Factors and Arterial Pulse Wave Velocity in Adulthood: The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study

Limited and partly controversial data are available regarding the relationship of arterial pulse wave velocity and childhood cardiovascular risk factors. We studied how risk factors identified in childhood and adulthood predict pulse wave velocity assessed in adulthood. The study cohort consisted of 1691 white adults aged 30 to 45 years who had risk factor data available since childhood. Pulse wave velocity was assessed noninvasively by whole-body impedance cardiography. The number of conventional childhood and adulthood risk factors (extreme quintiles for low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, body mass index, and smoking) was directly associated with pulse wave velocity in adulthood (P=0.005 and P<0.0001, respectively). In multivariable regression analysis, independent predictors of pulse wave velocity were sex (P<0.0001), age (P<0.0001), childhood systolic blood pressure (P=0.002) and glucose (P=0.02), and adulthood systolic blood pressure (P<0.0001), insulin (P=0.0009), and triglycerides (P=0.003). Reduction in the number of risk factors (P<0.0001) and a favorable change in obesity status (P=0.0002) from childhood to adulthood were associated with lower pulse wave velocity in adulthood. Conventional risk factors in childhood and adulthood predict pulse wave velocity in adulthood. Favorable changes in risk factor and obesity status from childhood to adulthood are associated with lower pulse wave velocity in adulthood. These results support efforts for a reduction of conventional risk factors both in childhood and adulthood in the primary prevention of atherosclerosis.