BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Parity is associated with the risk of clinical cardiovascular events and the severity of preclinical atherosclerosis in older subjects. We sought to determine whether childbearing is associated with concurrent changes in cardiovascular risk factors and the progression of carotid intima-media thickness. METHODS We examined the association between the number of children b...

BACKGROUND The mechanisms by which smoking cessation reduces cardiovascular disease risk are unclear. We evaluated longitudinal changes in carotid intima-media thickness among current smokers enrolled in a prospective, randomized smoking cessation clinical trial. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Subjects were enrolled in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 5 smoking cessatio...

BACKGROUND The thickness of the arterial intima increases and that of the media decreases with increasing age and degree of atherosclerosis. Separate estimates of the individual intima and media layers might therefore be more appropriate than the commonly used method estimating the combined intima-media thickness (IMT). METHODS AND RESULTS One hundred consecutive 70-year-old subjects from the...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE To determine the effect of a lipid-lowering agent and/or a low-dose antithrombotic agent on the progression of early-stage carotid atherosclerosis, noninvasive B-mode ultrasound was used to measure intimal-medial thickness in asymptomatic individuals with moderately elevated lipids as part of the ongoing multicenter Asymptomatic Carotid Artery Plaque Study. METHODS Unif...

BACKGROUND Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is known to be closely associated with cardiovascular disease. Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) is widely used for assessment of atherosclerosis. Mean platelet volume (MPV) is a new marker associated with atherothrombosis. In this study, we aimed to detect early atherosclerosis by measuring carotid intima-media thickness and to investigate the relati...

Aim This study was intended to explore the effect of various drugs used to treat fatty liver on intimal-media thickness in patients with NAFLD. Background Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is an indicator of a broad spectrum of pathologic disorders, which is characterized with macro vesicular steatosis in the absent of alcohol use. It has a wide range of laboratory, clinical and pathol...

BACKGROUND Several previous epidemiologic studies have shown that high blood levels of carotenoids may be protective against early atherosclerosis, but results have been inconsistent. We assessed the association between atherosclerotic progression, measured by intima-media thickness of the common carotid artery wall, and serum levels of carotenoids. METHODS We studied the effect of carotenoid...

Thromboxane prostaglandin receptors (TPRs) are deeply involved in the atherosclerotic process whether they are located on platelets, immune cells (monocytes/macrophages or lymphocytes), or vascular cells (smooth muscle cells, endothelial cells). Animal experiments suggested that the inhibition of TPRs has a broad action on atherosclerosis, that is, decrease in atherosclerotic plaque formation a...

High-resolution B-mode ultrasonography of the carotid arteries is used to investigate the signs of early atherosclerotic vessel wall disease. To assess whether carotid artery findings reflect atherosclerosis elsewhere, we studied the association between common carotid intima-media thickness and lower extremity arterial atherosclerosis among the first 1000 participants of the Rotterdam Study. Th...

background: scuba divers work in high pressure conditions which may cause some changes in physiological status to adapt to this situation. in this study, the carotid intima-media thickness (cimt) was assessed in divers as a risk factor of cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disorders. methods: this historical cohort study was performed on 16 male professional scuba divers as case group and 30 he...