Plasma norepinephrine is an independent predictor of vascular endothelial function with aging in healthy women

We tested the hypothesis that reductions in vascular endothelial function (endothelium-dependent dilation, EDD) with age are related to increases in sympathetic activity. Among 314 healthy men and women, age was inversely related to brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD) (r = -0.30, P < 0.001), a measure of EDD, and positively related to plasma norepinephrine concentrations (PNE), a marker of sympathetic activity (r = 0.49, P < 0.001). Brachial FMD was inversely related to PNE in all subjects (r = -0.25, P < 0.001) and in men (n = 187, r = -0.17, P = 0.02) and women (n = 127, r = -0.37, P < 0.001) separately. After controlling for PNE (multiple regression analysis), brachial FMD remained significantly related to age in all subjects (r = -0.20, P < 0.001) and in men (r = -0.23, P < 0.01), but not women (r = -0.16, P = 0.06). Consistent with this, brachial FMD remained significantly related to PNE when controlling for age (r = -0.24, P < 0.01) and menopause status (r = -0.24, P < 0.01) in women. Indeed, PNE was the strongest independent correlate of brachial FMD in women after controlling for conventional cardiovascular disease risk factors (r = -0.22, P = 0.01). This relation persisted in a subset of women (n = 113) after further accounting for the effects of plasma oxidized low-density lipoprotein (P < 0.05), a circulating marker of oxidative stress. Endothelium-independent dilation was not related to age in either men or women (P > 0.05). These results provide the first evidence that EDD is inversely related to sympathetic activity, as assessed by PNE, among healthy adults varying in age. In particular, our findings suggest that sympathetic nervous system activity may be a key factor involved in the modulation of vascular endothelial function with aging in women.