We know the formula well: “We are as old as our arteries!” As often with popular common sense, it is the translation into everyday language of medical knowledge that has shown that the harmful effects of aging also affect the arteries.
“We are as old as our arteries! This well-known formula is the translation into everyday language of medical knowledge which has shown that the harmful effects of aging also affect the arteries.
Thus, with aging, the arteries thicken and the narrowing of the vessels that may occur will cause cardiovascular diseases which, along with cancer, are the two leading causes of mortality and reduced life expectancy in adults. .
Know the age of your arteries
Recent research has shown that the “age of the arteries” increases when the blood vessels are subjected to several attacks at the same time, such as high blood pressure, tobacco, high cholesterol or diabetes.
This is why doctors offer hypertensives to detect and also take care if necessary of diabetes, elevated cholesterol and encourage them to quit smoking. By evaluating “the age of his arteries”, each hypertensive will know the importance of the attack of his vessels.
Knowing the age of your arteries is good, but can you act?
Yes, because it will then be possible to recommend the most appropriate treatments that will keep the age of their arteries as close as possible to their real age, and thus allow healthy aging.
Slowing down aging means playing on the usual and well-known risk factors, it is also reducing your cardiovascular risk.
How to measure this age?
It’s here Hypertension Research Foundation which offers, on its site, a simple and practical test to perform to calculate the age of its arteries, compare it to its real age and thus understand the impact of the risk factors on which we can act, smoking, overeating and inaction to improve our “vascular age”, ie the health of our arteries and our heart.
There is no simple technique for measuring the flexibility of the arteries or estimating their aging. The calculation of the arterial age is possible by the use of a mathematical equation which requires to know: the age, the blood pressure, the existence or not of a diabetes, the total cholesterol and what one calls the “good” cholesterol, HDL. Very easy to do at home.
This calculation gives only an indicative value of the age of the arteries, and is intended to serve as a basis for discussion and exchanges with your doctor. It also makes it possible to quantify the benefit provided by stopping smoking if you smoke, or by the drop in blood pressure or cholesterol induced by the treatments. Visualizing the benefits of treatments and healthy living in this way can be more convincing than long speeches when it comes to long-term prescriptions.
We already have an idea of the results
83% of hypertensives have a vascular age above their civil age, against 44% for non-hypertensives. High blood pressure therefore accelerates the aging of the arteries. Indeed, the arteries confronted with hypertension change:
– the walls of the large arteries stiffen and lose their flexibility;
– the small arteries thicken, their diameter decreases and their ability to expand to adapt to the needs is reduced.
The lack of flexibility and a thickening of the walls of the arteries lead to the interruption of the irrigation of the organs by the blood. Which will cause angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, or even strokes…
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