Strategies to Treat Vascular Aging

The vascular system does not age gracefully. Blood vessel walls become stiff and inflamed, interfering in contraction and dilation in response to circumstances. The result is the raised blood pressure of hypertension, which causes damage throughout the body in numerous ways. Further, the fatty lesions of atherosclerosis form in later life, weakening and narrowing blood vessels. This is the result of increased levels of oxidized cholesterol molecules, causing the macrophages responsible for cleaning up blood vessel wall tissues to falter in their tasks. Further still, the blood-brain barrier that lines blood vessels in the brain breaks down and leaks unwanted cells and molecules into brain tissue, causing neuroinflammation and the onset of cognitive decline. But there is more than even this, such as the loss of capillary network density that leads to a declining supply of nutrients and oxygen to tissues throughout the body. Today's short open access paper is a brief tour of a few strategies for which there is evidence for their application to reduce the impact of vascular aging. It is a mixed bag in terms of size of effect, reliability, and quality and amount of evidence. The best of the bunch is likely senolytic therapies that selectively destroy senescent cells, but even here, while the animal data is quite impressive, that outcome remains to be proven in human trials. The point to take away from this is that the aging of the vascular system is quite important in the ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs