Increased arterial stiffness in normoglycaemic offspring of newly diagnosed, never treated type 2 diabetic and impaired glucose tolerance parents

Arterial stiffness has been used to demonstrate vasculopathy in adults with diabetes but studies on arterial stiffness in offspring of diabetic patients are scarce, and no study has been reported in the offspring of parents with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT). In this study arterial stiffness in normoglycaemic offspring (n=30) of parents with type 2 diabetes, normoglycaemic offspring (n =30) of IGT parents and 30 age and sex-matched normoglycaemic offspring of normoglycaemic parents was investigated. Arterial stiffness was assessed by pulse wave velocity (PWV) and augmentation index (AI) using SphygmoCor. Significantly higher PWV was noted in offspring of type 2 diabetes than in offspring of normoglycaemic parents (6.94±0.9 vs. 6.33±0.7 m/s, p= 0.010). Offspring of type 2 diabetes parents also demonstrated significantly higher PWV than IGT offspring (6.94±0.9 vs. 6.43±1.1, p=0.021). Significantly higher AI was observed in offspring of type 2 diabetes and IGT parents than progeny of normoglycaemic parents (105.62±14.2 vs. 96.42±7.7, p=0.001; 104.98±11.1 vs. 96.42±7.7%, p=0.004, espectively). The study demonstrated that normoglycaemic offspring of newly diagnosed, never treated type 2 diabetes and IGT parents had increased arterial stiffness. Such increases in arterial stiffness revealed early manifestations of preclinical vasculopathy and potentially increased risk for development of macrovascular diseases in the normoglycaemic offspring. Br J Diabetes Vasc Dis 2009;9: 65—68.