ACE and Hypertension: When aortic diameter alone was considered as a dependent variable, we found that levels of plasma total CatS (P<0.001), pro–CatS (P = 0.001), and active CatS (P<0.001) correlated significantly and positively with aortic diameter after adjusting for all other variables, including familial AAA; current smoking; diabetes mellitus; hypertension; use of ACE inhibitors, β–blockers, or statins; systolic and diastolic blood pressures; PAD; BMI; and plasma cystatin C levels (only total CatS is shown in Table 4).