J Appl Biomed 12:147-153, 2014 | DOI: 10.1016/j.jab.2014.02.004

Vascular variability anomalies (VVAs) in children

Elena Vasiljevna Syutkina^a, Olga Viktorovna Kozhevnikova^a, Leila Seimurovna Namazova-Baranova^a, Ivan Jevgenievitch Smirnov^a, Anatoly Viktorovich Masalov^b, Germaine Cornelissen^c,*, Othild Schwartzkopff^c, Maria Dmitrijevna Mitish^a, Lyazzat Gumarova^c, Franz Halberg^c

^a Scientific Center of Children's Health, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow, Russia

^b Lebedev Physical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

^c Halberg Chronobiology Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

This work aims at studying in children the prevalence of some vascular variability anomalies (VVAs), i.e. indices of an increased risk of heart and vessel diseases revealed by chronobiologic analysis of cardiovascular monitoring data - systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) MESOR-hypertension/hypotension, circadian hyper-amplitude-tension (CHAT), ecphasia and an excessive pulse pressure (EPP). A reference group of 138 healthy Moscow schoolchildren (age 12-17 years) was used for determination of 90% prediction limits for the circadian parameters of SBP and DBP, specified by gender and age (or height). The test group included another 194 children of the same age range with headache and abnormal BP values by casual measurement. BP data series from each child were analyzed by the COSINOR method. VVAs were found in 44.8% of children from the test group. In boys, VVAs occur more often than in girls (51.5% vs. 30.6%). One child may have up to 3 VVAs. The presence of VVAs may be related to an elevated BMI. The most common VVAs in childhood are the abnormalities of PP and systolic CHAT. Cosinor analysis can reveal a large number of children with PP higher than a threshold (60 mmHg) during a relatively long portion of the day (more than 1/3 of the 24 h span).

Keywords: Vascular variability anomalies; Children; Cardiovascular disease risk; Blood pressure monitoring; Chronobiologic analysis

Received: August 26, 2013; Accepted: October 17, 2013; Published: July 1, 2014  Show citation