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1Laboratory of Cardiovascular Science, Gerontology Research Center, National Institute on Ageing, National Institute of Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. lakattae@grc.nia.nih.gov
Insights
Aging significantly increases the risk of heart disease, hypertension, heart failure, and stroke. This review explores how the aging process in the heart and blood vessels contributes to these age-related cardiovascular diseases.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Science
- Gerontology
- Pathophysiology
Background:
- Cardiovascular diseases (coronary disease, hypertension, heart failure, stroke) incidence rises sharply with age.
- While lifestyle and genetics are risk factors, aging itself is the primary risk determinant.
- Age-related changes in cardiac and vascular structures likely interact with disease mechanisms, influencing occurrence and severity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the interaction between aging and cardiovascular disease.
- To elucidate the nature of the aging process in the heart and vasculature.
- To understand how age-related modifications of cardiovascular substrates affect disease.
Main Methods:
- Review of current scientific literature on cardiovascular aging.
- Analysis of pathophysiological mechanisms underlying age-related cardiovascular changes.
- Examination of the aging process in the heart and blood vessels in the absence of overt disease.
Main Results:
- Aging modifies cardiac and vascular substrates.
- These age-related modifications are hypothesized to interact with disease-specific mechanisms.
- The aging process itself is a major modulator of cardiovascular disease risk and severity.
Conclusions:
- Understanding the aging process in the cardiovascular system is crucial for unraveling age-disease interactions.
- Age-related changes in the heart and vasculature are fundamental to the increased incidence of cardiovascular diseases in older populations.
- Further research into the specific mechanisms of cardiovascular aging is warranted to inform prevention and treatment strategies.
Abstract:
The incidence and prevalence of coronary disease, hypertension, heart failure and stroke increase exponentially with advancing age. While epidemiologic studies have discovered that aspects of lifestyle and genetics are risk factors for these diseases, age, per se, confers the major risk. Thus, it is reasonable to hypothesise that specific pathophysiological mechanisms that underlie these diseases become superimposed on cardiac and vascular substrates that have been modified by an 'ageing process', and that the latter modulates disease occurrence and severity. In order to unravel this age-disease interaction, the nature of the ageing process in the heart and vasculature requires elucidation. Some aspects of the current understanding of ageing of the heart and blood vessels in the absence of apparent disease are the focus of this review.
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