Table 4.

Associations of HRV with carotid IMT and baPWV.

Surrogate Marker of Atherosclerosis	Study Design	Population	Comments	References
Carotid intima media thickness (IMT)	Cross-sectional	Cardiovascular risk factors (n = 330) Depressed with cardiovascular risk factors (n = 391) Males >40 years old (n = 124) Cardiovascular risk factors (n = 101)	HRV associated with carotid IMT, independent of sleep quality and apnea-hypopnea. Inflammation may be involved in association between autonomic dysfunction and atherosclerosis.	Kadoya et al. [11] Pizzi et al. [69] Ulleryd et al. [70] Pereira et al. [71]
	Retrospective	Hypertensive (n = 200)	HRV associated with renal damage	Melillo et al. [68]
	Prospective	Type 2 diabetes (n = 61)	Decreased HRV may predict progression of carotid atherosclerosis	Gottsater et al. [67]
Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV)	Cross-sectional	Type 1 diabetes (n = 344)	Lower HRV associated with higher baPWV (no prospective studies available)	Jaiswal et al. [72]

HRV: heart rate variability.