Relating Warfarin, Vitamin K, and Cellular Senescence in the Progression of Aortic Calcification

Calcification of blood vessel walls progresses with age, an issue that sees cells behave as through they are in bone tissue, a maladaptive reaction to the altered signaling environment and damage of aged tissue. The resulting deposition of calcium makes normally flexible cardiovascular tissue stiff and dysfunctional, ultimately contributing to disease and death. Evidence has accumulated in recent years for the accumulation of senescent cells to be an important contributing factor to calcification. Senescent cells grow in number with age and secrete the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), signals that rouse the immune system to inflammation and cause harmful alterations in the behavior of other cells. There is an established body of work regarding factors that affect the progression of calcification, such as chronic use of the anticoagulant warfarin (unfavorable) and vitamin K intake (favorable). Given the better and broader understanding lately emerged in the research community of the relevance of cellular senescence to aging, a great deal of retrofitting of old theories and data is presently taking place. Today's open access paper is an example of this sort of work, in which links are established between the SASP and long-established risk factors for calcification revolving around the role of vitamin K and treatments like warfarin that reduce vitamin K levels. Warfarin Accelerates Aortic Calcification by Upregulating Senescence-Associated Secretor...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs