Fitness linked to less artery-wall stiffness in older adults
Higher fitness was linked to 0.26 meters per second lower artery-wall stiffness per minute on the study’s fitness measure, among 799 older adults.
Limit: Fitness was estimated from walking performance rather than measured directly
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
In a cross-sectional observational study, 799 older adults averaged 72 years of age, and 59.2% were female. Researchers estimated heart-and-lung fitness from a 400-meter walk test. They assessed stiffness in the aorta, the body’s main artery, by measuring the speed of pressure waves. They then used models to separate stiffness attributed to artery-wall structure from stiffness related to blood pressure.
After accounting for common cardiovascular risk factors, higher estimated fitness was associated with lower overall stiffness and lower structural stiffness. Fitness was not associated with blood-pressure-related stiffness. Subgroup analyses suggested that the associations were strongest in males and participants aged 70 or older.
Why it matters
Large arteries stiffen with age. These findings suggest that fitness may relate to vascular aging through long-term changes in artery walls rather than blood-pressure-related mechanisms.
Caveats
This cross-sectional analysis cannot show that greater fitness caused lower stiffness or slowed changes in artery walls over time. Fitness was estimated from walking performance rather than measured directly.
- Blood pressure
- 400-m walk test
- Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity
- Load-dependent carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity
- Structural carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity
- Humans
The paper
Iowa State University
American Journal of Physiology Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, Oct 7, 2026
