Sedentary Behavior and Arterial Stiffness in Adults with and without Metabolic Syndrome.

This study aimed to investigate whether sedentary time (Sed) and physical activity (PA) are associated with arterial stiffness in individuals with and without metabolic syndrome (MetS). This cross-sectional study comprised 197 individuals (47±13 years; 58% female) from a primary health care centre. Arterial stiffness was assessed using carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV). Metabolic syndrome was determined as clustering of at least 3 out of 5 risk factors (central obesity, hypertension, impaired glucose, triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol). Daily PA was objectively assessed and classified in Sed, light and moderate-to-vigorous PA. Physical activity was used as a continuous variable for multiple regression analysis. For mean comparisons of cfPWV between subjects with and without MetS, a binary split at the median of Sed and PA was used. Sedentary time was associated with cfPWV (ß=0.11; p=0.01) explaining 1.3% of its variance; independently of age (ß=0.49; p<0.001), systolic blood pressure (ß=0.27; p<0.001) and fasting glucose (ß=0.19; p<0.001). Participants with MetS and more Sed had higher cfPWV than those with MetS and less Sed (9.9±1.0 vs. 8.9±1.0 m/s; p<0.05). Sedentary time is associated with cfPWV independently of age and metabolic risk factors. A higher Sed in MetS individuals lead to a worse arterial stiffness profile.

Relationship between heart rate variability indexes and common biochemical markers in normal and hypertensive third trimester pregnancy.

BACKGROUND: In this study, we explored the correlations between heart rate variability indexes and some biochemical markers during the third trimester of normal, hypertensive, and preeclamptic pregnancies. METHODS AND RESULTS: The obtained indexes are associated with complexity and spectral variables calculated from short electrocardiographic records. CONCLUSIONS: Including all the subjects in the analysis, we found that complexity indexes are positively related with hemoglobin concentration in the pathologic group and uric acid blood levels whereas low frequency (LF) was negatively correlated with uric acid and creatinine concentration as well as positively correlated with platelet levels. The LF was the only spectral region with significant correlation. Through an independent analysis of groups, only significant correlations were found in normal and preeclamptic groups between LF and uric acid concentration and in normal and hypertensive groups for LF and creatinine blood levels.

Artificial neural network for normal, hypertensive, and preeclamptic pregnancy classification using maternal heart rate variability indexes.

OBJECTIVE: A model construction for classification of women with normal, hypertensive and preeclamptic pregnancy in different gestational ages using maternal heart rate variability (HRV) indexes. METHOD AND PATIENTS: In the present work, we applied the artificial neural network for the classification problem, using the signal composed by the time intervals between consecutive RR peaks (RR) (n = 568) obtained from ECG records. Beside the HRV indexes, we also considered other factors like maternal history and blood pressure measurements. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The obtained result reveals sensitivity for preeclampsia around 80% that increases for hypertensive and normal pregnancy groups. On the other hand, specificity is around 85-90%. These results indicate that the combination of HRV indexes with artificial neural networks (ANN) could be helpful for pregnancy study and characterization.