The Association between Ankle-Brachial Index and Cardiovascular or All-Cause Mortality in Metabolic Syndrome of Elderly Chinese

The ankle-brachial index (ABI) is a non-invasive, reliable measurement of lower-extremity ischemia. A low ABI is associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease, stroke and death. However, the relationship between ABI and all-cause mortality or cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality in patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS) has not been well studied. Accordingly, we here investigated the association between ABI and all-cause and CVD mortality in an elderly Chinese population with MetS. A total of 2,274 MetS patients diagnosed under the criteria proposed by the International Diabetes Federation were divided into two groups based on repeated ABI measurement over a period of 13.6 months: ABI≤0.9 ( n =525) and ABI 0.91–1.4 ( n =1,749). Each of the baseline characteristics of age, systolic blood pressure, diabetes mellitus morbidity, and smoking history were significantly different between the two groups ( p