Association between arterial compliance and age in participants 9 to 77 years old.

We characterized the age-related change in large and small artery compliance in 137 healthy participants between 9 and 77 years of age. Large artery compliance, measured by diastolic pulse contour analysis, had a sharp positive linear trend (0.89 mL x mm Hg( -1) x year(-1)) highly correlated with age in participants younger than 30 years (r = .76, p <.0001), had a slight negative trend (-0.10 mL x mm Hg(-1) x year(-1)) not significantly associated with age (r = -.11, p = .532) in middle-aged participants, and had a sharper negative trend (-0.19 mL x mm Hg(-1) x year(-1)) significantly associated with age (r = -.30, p =.023) in participants beyond 50 years. Similar results were found for small artery compliance. Large and small artery compliance increase in children, adolescents, and young adults, reach plateaus near age 30, and then decline beyond 30 years of age in those free of cardiovascular disease and risk factors.