Heritability of the ambulatory arterial stiffness index AASI in Swedish families.

We estimated the heritability of the ambulatory arterial stiffness index (AASI) obtained from ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) monitoring, recently proposed as index of arterial stiffness, before and after adjustment for significant covariates in 260 healthy siblings from 118 Swedish families. Both AASI and 24-h pulse pressure, another raw index of arterial stiffness, resulted to be significantly heritable both before and after adjustment for classical covariates, suggesting that both those indices are partially under genetic control and can capture independent information on inherited factors that contribute to arterial stiffness.