Assessment of Vascular Response

The AngioDefender technology assesses your risk of developing cardiovascular diseases before symptoms appear. The AngioDefender test is done like a blood pressure reading, and measures the health of your blood vessels and arteries, or your endothelial function (please see below for an explanation of what the endothelium does). The test produces an AngioDefender Score that represents the relative health of your heart and arteries as well as your risk of cardiovascular disease. These results, along with the advice of a health care professional, can help you to make decisions about making simple changes to your lifestyle or diet, or about medications to protect and improve your long-term heart health.

The AngioDefender technology takes various readings during the test and converts them to an AngioDefender Score based on Flow Mediated Dilation (%FMD) of the artery in your upper arm. Flow Mediated Dilation (%FMD) measures how quickly the blood flow returns to normal after the pressure in the cuff is released and is an indicator of the overall health of your heart and blood vessels/ arteries. Your healthcare provider interprets this score along with other factors, including age and lifestyle, to paint a total picture of your health risk for stroke, heart attack and other conditions.

The AngioDefender system measures the health of your endothelium using a process called FlowMediated Dilation (%FMD). It does this by running through a series of inflations and deflations of a blood pressure cuff to analyze the endothelium’s response to increased blood flow – that is, how quickly the blood flow returns to normal after the cuff pressure is released. The healthier your endothelium, the higher your %FMD.

Before the AngioDefender system, measuring damage to your arteries required highly technical, costly, and even intrusive procedures. Now you can get a precise and accurate assessment of your cardiovascular health, including your heart, in just a few minutes. Plus, you can also witness evidence of your improved health by getting retested after making changes to your diet, exercise, or smoking habits, for example.