A Discussion of Targeting the Mechanisms of Cardiovascular Aging

This very readable open access paper discusses some of the mechanisms involved in cardiovascular aging. As for many such publications, and to my eyes at least, it leans too much towards the details of the aged metabolism rather than towards the underlying causes that make the cells of an aged cardiovascular system behave differently. Near all medicine for age-related disease has so far focused on trying to change the way in which cells behave in response to the causes of aging, without addressing those causes, and, as a result, beneficial outcomes have been marginal at best. It is somewhere between very hard and impossible to make a damaged machine run well without actually repairing the damage. The approach we take to aging, cardiovascular or otherwise, should be one of periodic repair of root causes. All around the world, scientists are trying to beat age-related diseases, such as heart attacks, cancer, and dementia; stop people getting ill is an obvious goal to aid the individual wellbeing and reduce pressure on society. At the whole organism level, aging has been defined as the time-related deterioration of the physiological functions necessary for survival and fertility. This definition applies to all the individuals of a species and overlaps with disease-related aging. Aging of the vasculature plays a key role in morbidity and mortality of older people. It is often assimilated with endothelial dysfunction, that is, the failure of vascular endothelial cells to r...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs