Two Recent Review Papers on the Aging of Blood Vessels

Today I'll point out a couple of recently published open access papers that discuss aspects of arterial aging. The age-related decline of blood vessel structure and function is one of the more important aspects of aging, given that it is at present a largely one-way road to cardiovascular disease and death. Despite the efforts of the research community over past decades, which have included the noteworthy success story of statins, and an ongoing reduction in cardiovascular mortality rates, this remains the principal cause of age-related death in humans. To a first approximation, old humans die when the heart or blood vessels fail. The many other age-related causes of death taken together make up a minority of overall late-life mortality. Perhaps the most important aspect of blood vessel aging is loss of elasticity. The stiffening of major blood vessels is enough on its own to break the feedback mechanisms that control blood pressure, causing progressively worsening hypertension. Increased blood pressure causes the heart to become larger and weaker, and also increases the rate at which pressure-related damage and blood vessel rupture occurs in more delicate tissues. Stiffening of blood vessels is probably primarily caused by cross-linking in the extracellular matrix, but evidence suggests that senescent cell accumulation and the inflammation generated by these cells also plays a role. These errant cells promote calcification in blood vessel walls, which can also contrib...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs