Objective To investigate increased ambulatory arterial stiffness index correlated with plasma level and expression of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1.

Methods One hundred and eight subjects with prehypertension and 101 optimal normotensive subjects were eligible enrolled. Non-invasive ambulatory blood pressure monitoring was performed using automatic devices (TM-2421 and TM-2430; A&D, Tokyo, Japan) and ambulatory arterial stiffness index was calculated in all participants. Monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 expression was conducted by quantitative real-time reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR).

Results Ambulatory arterial stiffness index was 0.48±0.10% in prehypertensives, higher than that in optimism normotensives (t value=10.689, P-1 in prehypertensives.