Is higher aortic stiffness associated with an increased risk of incident hypertension?
Aortic stiffness appears to precede and predict incident hypertension, whereas initial blood pressure does not independently predict progressive aortic stiffening.
In this cohort, higher aortic stiffness, FWA, and augmentation index were associated with higher risk of incident hypertension; however, initial blood pressure was not independently associated with risk of progressive aortic stiffening.
Kaess et al. (2012) studied this question.