[State of the brachial artery wall in patients with and without metabolic syndrome].

The purpose of this study was to investigate the condition of endothelium-dependent vasodilatation of the brachial artery in patients with metabolic syndrome, as well as to determine the clinical and laboratory factors associated with disordered macrovascular reactivity. The study comprised one hundred and thirty-two 35-to-50-year-old somatically healthy men. The diagnosis of metabolic syndrome was made in accordance with the WHO criteria. Insulin resistance was assessed according to the HOMA-IR index. To evaluate the interrelationships between the risk factors of atherosclerosis and the pattern of peripheral vascular reactions, the study was carried out in two groups of patients: one comprising patients with metabolic syndrome, and the control group. The increment of the brachial artery's diameter after decompression in the control group turned out reliably more pronounced as compared with that in the study group patients (averagely 11.9+/-0.44 % for the control group subjects vs. 9.0+/-0.37% for the study group patients, p=0.047). In the group of the patients with metabolic syndrome, the diameter of the brachial artery after the test with reactive hyperaemia varied in inverse proportion with the degree of insulin resistance in accordance with the HOMA index (p=0.04, r=-0.25). Also an inverse correlation was observed with the body mass index (r=-0.43, p<0.001), the duration of arterial hypertension (r=-0.29, p=0.014), and the level of triglycerides and very low density lipoproteins (r=-0.28, p=0.02).