Relationship of a Body Shape Index and Body Roundness Index with carotid atherosclerosis in arterial hypertension.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: A Body Shape Index (ABSI) and Body Roundness Index (BRI) are two new anthropometric adiposity indices that have shown to be associated better than BMI with adipose abdominal tissue, with the onset of diabetes and the risk of premature death. Little is known about the influence of ABSI and BRI on subclinical vascular damage. The study was aimed to assess the relationship between ABSI and BRI with carotid atherosclerosis damage in subjects with arterial hypertension. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 468 patients with arterial hypertension (30-80 years old) were enrolled; adiposity indices were calculated (BMI, WC, ABSI, BRI) and carotid ultrasonographic examination was performed to detect atherosclerotic damage (IMT or atherosclerotic plaque). BRI, but not ABSI, was higher in subjects with IMT> 0.90 mm in comparison to those with a lower IMT (p < 0.001), whereas patients with carotid plaques showed higher values of ABSI (p = 0.001), as well as of BRI (p = 0.003). Linear regression analysis disclosed significant correlation of IMT with ABSI, BRI and BMI (all p < 0.001). In the multivariate analysis, BRI was independently correlated with cIMT (p = 0.015). On the contrary, ABSI did not show any independent association with cIMT. However, ABSI was strongly associated with carotid plaques in multiple logistic regression analysis after adjustment for potential confounding factors. When BRI or BMI replaced ABSI into the multivariate models, they did not show any independent correlation with carotid plaques. CONCLUSIONS: ABSI may be proposed as a better correlate of carotid atherosclerosis than the traditional measures of adiposity.

Association between early-stage chronic kidney disease and reduced choroidal thickness in essential hypertensive patients.

The introduction in the past few years of advanced optical coherence tomography (OCT) techniques has greatly increased our understanding of the choroid, which is the most important vascular layer of the eye. Our study aimed to assess choroidal thickness by using swept-source OCT (SS-OCT) in essential hypertensive patients (EHs) with and without early-stage chronic kidney disease (CKD). We enrolled 100 EHs, of whom 65 were without kidney damage, and 35 had stage 1-3 CKD. In all of the participants, SS-OCT and a routine biochemical workup were performed. Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) was estimated by the CKD Epidemiology Collaboration equation (eGFR). CKD was defined in agreement with the Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes 2002 guidelines. OCT measurements were performed according to the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) protocol, which divides the macula into nine subfields. The circular grid consists of three concentric rings. EHs with CKD showed thinner choroidal thicknesses than those without it (all p < 0.05), even after adjustment for potential confounding factors. Overall choroidal thickness correlated significantly and directly with eGFR (r = 0.36) and negatively with urinary albumin excretion (r = -0.39). The association of choroidal thickness with CKD was confirmed in multiple logistic regression analyses once the effects of age and other confounding variables were accounted for. The odds ratio of having early-stage CKD associated with a standard deviation increase in overall choroidal thickness was 0.43 (0.24-0.75, 95% confidence interval; p = 0.007). In conclusion, our study confirms the close relationships between changes in ocular microcirculation and renal dysfunction.