24-hour Blood Pressure Measurements and Ischemic Conditioning

Reestablishing blood flow (reperfusion) to organs that had their blood supply restricted (ischemia) can cause damage to the vasculature via injury and tissue death resulting in endothelial dysfunction. This ischemia-reperfusion (blood flow occlusion and resupply) triggered injury can be reduced or prevented by preceding brief periods of ischemia called preconditioning. Properly-performed preconditioning can exert a powerful protection against a subsequent sustained period of ischemia in a variety of organs in the body including the heart, kidney, and skeletal muscle. Preconditioning protocol involves repeated brief inflation and deflation of a blood pressure cuff. In many of human cardiovascular research studies, it is common to measure endothelial function and ambulatory (24-hour) blood pressure. The ambulatory blood pressure device takes repeated blood pressure readings every 15-30 minutes during the daytime and 30-60 minutes at night. It is possible that repeated bouts of inflation/deflation of the blood pressure cuff could induce preconditioning effects and influence endothelial function. Therefore, in the proposed study we aim to address this hypothesis.