Linking Gum Disease with the Progression of Atherosclerosis and Risk of Stroke

Atherosclerosis is a condition characterized by the growth of fatty lesions, atheromas, in blood vessel walls. This narrows and weakens blood vessels, leading to heart disease, and then ultimately the fatal rupture or blockage of a major vessel that causes a heart attack or stroke. This degeneration of the arteries is a universal process. It occurs to various degrees in every older person, and kills perhaps a sixth of humanity at the present time. The only reason that it doesn't kill everybody is that other degenerative process of aging manage to get in first, that data suggesting that this is most likely only a matter of a few years of difference. We are as old as our arteries, as they say. The pace at which atherosclerosis progresses is strongly driven by chronic inflammation. Excessive and constant inflammation is a feature of aging, with some people much worse off than others, and this variation in inflammatory burden goes a long way towards determining who will die, earlier than might otherwise be the case, due to the consequences of atherosclerosis. To understand why inflammation is important to this age-related condition, one needs to know something about the underlying processes that cause atherosclerotic lesions to form. Atherosclerosis is, in essence, a condition of dysfunctional macrophages. These immune cells are responsible for clearing out unwanted, excessive, or damaged lipids, such as cholesterols, from blood vessel walls. Those lipids are handed...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs