Ishida A, et al. - In a screened cohort, researchers investigated if increasing arterial stiffness and wave reflection with aging accounts for the increases in the ankle–brachial index (ABI) with age. They also investigated whether such increases in ABI were related to hypertension incidence. Overall 1,344 participants without hypertension at baseline were examined. These subjects had ABI measured at least twice with an interval of ≥ 36 months. Those with abnormal ABI values were excluded from the study. Findings revealed a positive, independent association of baseline ABI with the yearly change in systolic blood pressure and hypertension incidence. For hypertension incidence, participants with a high-normal ABI (1.20–1.39) demonstrated a significantly higher adjusted odds ratio vs participants with a normal ABI (1.00–1.19), which was evident both before and after multivariate adjustment for conventional risk factors.