Abstract
Overweight and obesity are widely recognized as significant contributors to adverse cardiovascular outcomes. Similarly, arterial stiffness has been strongly linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular events. Despite these parallels, the relationship between arterial stiffness and overweight/obesity remains highly contentious. This lack of consensus may stem from differences in the methodologies used to measure arterial stiffness across studies. PURPOSE: The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to compare arterial stiffness measured with different methods between overweight/obesity and healthy lean controls. METHODS: Systematic searches were conducted in multiple databases. Studies were included if they involved adults aged 18 years or older who were obese/overweight, with a lean control group and provided extractable data of arterial stiffness including carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV), brachial-ankle PWV (baPWV), arterial compliance (AC), arterial distensibility (AD), distensibility coefficient (AC), Peterson’s Modulus (Ep), incremental elastic modulus (Einc), or β-stiffness index (β-SI). Allowing for a standardized comparison of arterial stiffness, we converted AC, AD, Ep, Einc, and β-SI to PWV developed in our previous study. RESULTS: A total of 40,479 participants including 26,067 overweight/obesity participants and 14,412 healthy normal-weight controls in 62 studies were included for meta-analysis. A total of 27 studies showed significantly higher cfPWV in overweight/obesity than in controls (standard means difference [SMD]=0.69, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [0.43, 0.95], P<0.01). Similarly, baPWV in 17 studies demonstrated significantly higher levels of overweight/obesity than in controls (SMD=0.5, 95%CI = [0.36, 0.65], P<0.01). However, these results displayed significantly high heterogeneity (both, I2= 97%, P<0.01). After we converted AC, AD, Ep, Einc, and β-SI to PWV, there were no significant differences in converted PWV between overweight/obesity and controls in a total of 13 studies (SMD=0.04, 95%CI = [-0.02, 0.1], P=0.18). CONCLUSION: Arterial stiffness, as assessed by cfPWV and baPWV, is consistently associated with overweight and obesity. However, when imaging-based techniques were used to measure arterial stiffness, arterial stiffness was not elevated in overweight or obesity. This may be due to larger body size, greater stroke volume, and larger arterial expansion favoring overweight and obese populations in image-based techniques.
Recommended Citation
Zhou, Yanbing; Manabe, Kazumasa; Okamoto, Takanobu; and Tanaka, Hirofumi
(2025)
"Various Measures of Arterial Stiffness in Overweight and Obesity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,"
International Journal of Exercise Science: Conference Proceedings: Vol. 2:
Iss.
17, Article 7.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/ijesab/vol2/iss17/7
