Prevalence of asymptomatic arteriosclerosis obliterans and its relationship with risk factors in inhabitants of rural communities in Japan: Tanno-Sobetsu study.
OBJECTIVE
Since arteriosclerosis obliterance in the legs (ASO) causes deterioration of the prognosis of the elderly, prevention of ASO is important for maintenance of their quality of lives. We studied the prevalences of ASO in rural communities in Japan.


RESULTS
We measured the ratio of systolic blood pressure in the leg to that in the arm (ABI) using a new device, Form PWV/ABI, in 1398 subjects of both sexes. Subjects with ABI values below 0.9 were considered to have ASO. The prevalence of ASO was 2.7% in all of the subjects, 1.0% in subjects under the age of 60 years, and 3.4% in subjects aged 65 years or more. Multiple regression analysis showed that ABI was correlated with plasma level of total cholesterol in men. There were no significant differences of the mean age, mean fasting plasma glucose level and percentage of patients who smoked between the ASO group and non-ASO group in each sex. Mean cholesterol level in our subjects is lower than the reported levels in Europeans and Americans. The prevalence of ASO increased with increase in the number of risk factors in individual subjects.


CONCLUSIONS
Among the atherosclerotic risk factors, age and total cholesterol seem to be more important risk factors of ASO than others.
Second Department of Internal Medicine, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, S-1, W-16, Chuo-ku, Sapporo 060-8543, Japan.
Tadashi
T
Fujiwara
Shigeyuki
S
Saitoh
Satoru
S
Takagi
Hirofumi
H
Ohnishi
Junichi
J
Ohata
Hiroshi
H
Takeuchi
Takeshi
T
Isobe
Yu
Y
Chiba
Nobuo
N
Katoh
Hiroshi
H
Akasaka
Kazuaki
K
Shimamoto
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001162:Arteriosclerosis Obliterans / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012424:Rural Population