Vascular stiffness and autonomic status in young adults in the context of the angiological screening improving

Objective. To study the main parameters of heart rate variability in young persons in rest and when performing an active standing test depending on the vascular aging phenotype. Materials and methods. The study included 100 students aged 18—25 (49 of them were young men) who underwent angiological screening on Vasera VS-1500 device («Fukuda Denshi Co., Ltd.», Japan). By the value of CAVI-L, reflecting vascular stiffness (VS), three phenotypes of vascular aging were identified: the 1st tertile — healthy vascular aging, the 2nd tertile — normal vascular aging, the 3rd tertile — premature vascular aging — EVA syndrome. Parameters of heart rate variability (HRV) were recorded with the use of «VNS-PoliSpectr» (OOO «Neurosoft», Russia) hardware complex and analyzed in accordance with the Task Force ESC/ASPE standards (1996). Statistical analysis: ANOVA, Student’s t-test, Mann—Whitney U-test, correlation analysis (p<0.05). Results. There were no statistically significant differences in HRV indicators between groups at rest. During the orthostatic test of persons of the 3rd tertile group, a significant increase in heart rate (1.6 times higher compared to the 1st tertile group, p<0.001), a decrease in parasympathetic activity indicators (RMSSD, pNN50, HF) and an increase in sympathicotonic metrics (LF norm, LF/HF, stress indices) were noted. Correlation analysis showed no statistically significant relationships between CAVI indicator and HRV parameters at rest, but moderate statistically significant associations between CAVI and an increase in sympathetic activity parameters were revealed under orthostatic stress. Conclusion. In young individuals, increased vascular stiffness is not accompanied by changes in heart rate variability at rest, reflecting its persistent morphological character in each of the three vascular phenotypes, but in orthostasis it is manifested by a stress of the regulatory systems and, at the same time, a maximum shift of the autonomic balance towards sympathicotonia in persons from the upper CAVI tertile group.