The influence of age and the level of arterial blood pressure on the changes in forearm blood flow resulting from sudden alterations in local vascular transmural pressure.
Forearm blood flow was measured by venous occlusion plethysmography in normotensive subjects of various ages and in patients with treated or untreated hypertension. Brief exposure of one forearm to pressures below atmospheric was used to study the transient local changes in arterial inflow which occurred with changes in transmural pressure induced in this way. The increase in initial arterial inflow with such an exposure to suction in a group of young normotensive women was only slightly reduced in two groups of older women. However, a group of subjects with untreated hypertension showed a significantly smaller initial inflow during the suction. There was some indication that adequate treatment of high blood pressure might reverse this effect.