Early morning reduction in endothelium-dependent, flow-mediated dilation (FMD) may contribute to the high incidence of sudden cardiac death at this time of day. The mechanisms underpinning diurnal variation in FMD are unclear, but potentially relate to a circadian rhythm in sympathetic nerve activity. We hypothesized that blockade of α(1)-mediated sympathetic nerve activity would act to attenua...

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious disease of cloven-hoofed animals, including cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and certain wildlife species. The disease can cause massive economic losses when introduced into countries that were free from the infection, generating negative effects due to reduced animal productivity and restrictions on international livestock trade. Following 15 year...

OBJECTIVES A meta-analysis suggested that the use of varenicline, which is a partial agonist of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and is effective in smoking cessation, increases the risk of cardiovascular events within 52 weeks of starting treatment. Defining these events as occurring during drug treatment (usually for 12 weeks) or within 30 days of discontinuation, another meta-analysis showe...

Flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) is widely used to describe conduit artery endothelial function. The traditional approaches to FMD calculation assess diameter change at arbitrary time points after occluding cuff deflation. The aim of this study was to examine the time course of brachial artery FMD after a 5-minute period of forearm ischemia in 12 young, 12 fitness matched older and 12 older untra...

The physiological aging process is associated with endothelial dysfunction, as assessed by flow-mediated dilation (FMD). Aging is also characterized by increased sympathetic tone. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to assess whether acute changes in sympathetic activity alter FMD in the leg. For this purpose, the FMD of the superficial femoral artery was determined in 10 healthy young (...

Platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule 1 (PECAM-1) is capable of transducing signals in endothelial cells exposed to shear; however, the biological consequences of this signal transduction are unknown. Because shear stress elicits flow-mediated dilation (FMD), we examined whether steady-state FMD in mouse coronary arteries (MCAs) is affected in the PECAM-1 knockout (KO) mouse. MCAs were is...

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS Endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffness have a prognostic value on adverse long-term outcomes in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients. We evaluated the efficacy on vascular reactivity of candesartan and analyzed predictors to control the candesartan's effect on vascular reactivity in CAD patients. METHOD Patients were prospectively enrolled and prescribed candes...

BACKGROUND Initially based on histology, the diagnosis of renal artery fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD) is now based mostly on angiographic appearance because arterial tissue samples are rarely available. This retrospective cross-sectional study aimed to assess the clinical relevance of a binary angiographic classification of FMD lesions (unifocal or multifocal) based on computed tomographic or ma...

BACKGROUND Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is an economically important and highly contagious viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed domestic and wild animals. Virus isolation and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) are the gold standard tests for diagnosis of FMD. As these methods are time consuming, assays based on viral nucleic acid amplification have been developed. RESULTS A previou...

BACKGROUND Increased left ventricular (LV) mass and endothelial dysfunction are important risk factors for cardiovascular mortality and morbidity. However, it is not clear whether endothelial dysfunction is associated with increased LV mass. We tested the hypothesis that impaired flow-mediated vasodilatation (FMD) is associated with increased LV mass in a population-based multiethnic cohort. ...