Effects of biological sex and oral contraceptive pill use on cutaneous microvascular endothelial function and nitric oxide-dependent vasodilation in humans

Figures

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  Figure 1.. Responses to local heating between women and men. A: plateau. B: post-l-NAME plateau. C: NO-dependent vasodilation. Purple bars, all women (n = 18). Gray bars, men (n = 18). Data are represented as means ± SD. NO-dependent vasodilation data was analyzed with Mann–Whitney test. Plateau and post-l-NAME plateau data were analyzed with independent samples t tests. Level of significance was set at 0.05. Statistical significance is indicated as a horizontal line over respective group bars and labeled with the P value of the comparison. %CVCmax, percent of maximal cutaneous vascular conductance; l-NAME, Nω-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester; NO, nitric oxide.

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  Figure 2.. Responses to local heating between NC women, women using OCP, and men. A: plateau. B: post-l-NAME plateau. C: NO-dependent vasodilation. Pink bars, NC women (n = 9). Blue bars, women using OCP (n = 9). Gray bars, men (n = 18). Data are represented as means ± SD. NO-dependent vasodilation data was analyzed with Kruskal–Wallis test. Plateau and post-l-NAME plateau data were analyzed with one-way ANOVAs. Tukey’s correction factors were used to account for multiple pairwise comparisons for one-way ANOVAs and Dunn’s correction factors for Kruskal–Wallis test. Level of significance was set at 0.05. Statistical significance is indicated as a horizontal line over respective group bars and labeled with the P value of the comparison. l-NAME, Nω-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester; NC, naturally cycling; NO, nitric oxide; OCP, oral contraceptive pill.

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  Figure 3.. Sensory nerve-mediated vasodilation in response to local heating. A: initial peak in men vs. women. Purple bars, all women (n = 18). Gray bars, men (n = 18). Data was analyzed with Mann–Whitney test. B: initial peak between subgroups. Pink bars, NC women (n = 9). Blue bars, women using OCP (n = 9). Gray bars, men (n = 18). Data was analyzed with Kruskal–Wallis test. Dunn’s correction factors were used to account for multiple pairwise comparisons for Kruskal–Wallis tests. All data are represented as means ± SD. Level of significance was set at 0.05. Statistical significance is indicated as a horizontal line over respective group bars and labeled with the P value of the comparison. %CVCmax, percent of maximal cutaneous vascular conductance; l-NAME, Nω-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester; NC, naturally cycling; NO, nitric oxide; OCP, oral contraceptive pills.