All subjects undergoing health checkups are reminded that even though screenings can effectively diagnose a disease in advance and reduce its threat to your health, all examination items and medical instrument-based screenings do not have full sensitivity to various diseases. In addition, due to the diversity of the individual characteristics and health statuses of subjects, it is impossible to fully diagnose every disease.

Furthermore, after receiving a checkup, it is recommended that you receive follow-ups or treatment according to the doctor's recommendations, adjust your daily lifestyle, and avoid risk factors that may affect your health, so as to achieve the fullest potential of healthcare management and preventive medicine.

• Aim of examination: Vascular elasticity is used to measure arterial stiffness, and the dysfunction of endothelial cells is regarded as an early indicator of arteriosclerosis. The use of non-invasive methods to determine vascular elasticity and endothelial cell function is beneficial for assessing the risk of preclinical cardiovascular disease.

Atherosclerosis is a primary cause of cardiovascular diseases at present. The risk factors of atherosclerosis include age, gender, smoking, diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and family history. When atherosclerosis turns severe, the atherosclerotic plaques can cause arterial occlusion directly, or by thrombosis formation owing to plaque rupture. Therefore, blood flow is severely obstructed, leading toclinical cardiovascular symptoms and diseases, such as angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, and stroke, or sudden death.

However, in the early stages of atherosclerosis, the arterial endothelial cells lose their function of maintaining vascular relaxation, while arterial wall stiffness increases. In clinical practice, arterial elasticity analysis and arteriosclerosis analysis are currently used to measure vascular elasticity and evaluate the degree of arterial wall stiffness.

The principle of arterial elasticity analysis is the reduced synthesis of nitric oxide (NO), which protects and maintains the normal elasticity of blood vessels. Thus, in arterial elasticity analysis, a blood pressure monitoring cuff is placed on the forearm and external pressure is applied (in a similar way as when measuring blood pressure) to detect the degree of vascular expansion in response to the release of blood flow after the external pressure is removed. This facilitates the detection of preclinical atherosclerosis, as well as arterial health, based on the status of vascular endothelial cell function.

It is important to detect the risk of atherosclerosis during the preclinical stage before organ lesions appear. Medical interventions and maintenance of a healthy lifestyle reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and improve quality of life.