To understand our bodies, let’s imagine a city with streets and highways. Like how cars move on these roads, our blood travels through vessels called arteries.
But what happens when these roads get blocked? Just like traffic jams in a city, our bodies face similar problems, leading to serious health issues.
What are Arteries?
Arteries are large blood vessels that carry blood from our heart to the rest of our body. They are like the highways of our body’s traffic system.
When healthy, these arteries are smooth and flexible. They let the blood flow easily, taking oxygen and nutrients to every corner of our body.
The Trouble with Arteries: Atherosclerosis
Sometimes, our arteries can get clogged with a sticky substance called plaque. This condition is known as atherosclerosis. It’s like when sticky gum gets stuck on the road, causing a traffic jam.
When our arteries get clogged, the blood can’t flow freely. This can lead to serious health problems like heart attacks or strokes.
Aging: Growing Up and Growing Old
You know how you grow taller each year? That’s because your body is aging. Aging is a natural process. As we grow, our bodies change. But sometimes, things can go wrong.
Atherosclerosis and Aging: The Connection
Scientists from a big health research center called Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC) in Spain made an interesting discovery.
They found that atherosclerosis can make our bodies age faster than normal. It’s like if you were 12 years old but your body felt like it was 20!
This faster aging is not about how tall you grow or how quickly your hair grows. Instead, it’s about how your cells—the tiny building blocks of your body—age.
How do Scientists Measure Aging?
Scientists have a special way to measure aging in our cells. They look at something called DNA methylation, which is a change that happens to our DNA as we grow older.
Think of DNA as a set of instructions that tell our cells what to do. As we age, these instructions can change a little bit. This change is what scientists measure to tell how old our cells are.
Sometimes, the age of our cells (biological age) doesn’t match how old we really are (chronological age). This can happen due to various factors, like our lifestyle or health conditions like atherosclerosis.
What did the Scientists Discover?
The team of scientists studied a group of adults who had atherosclerosis but no symptoms. They compared their biological age to their real age.
What they found was interesting: those with atherosclerosis had cells that were aging faster than normal.
Why does this matter? Well, faster aging in our cells can lead to health problems. This discovery is important because it tells us that atherosclerosis can affect our health long before we notice any symptoms.
What Can We do About it?
The good news is that the changes in our cells that cause faster aging can be slowed down or even reversed.
That means there’s a chance to slow down the aging process in our cells. A healthy lifestyle, including a good diet and regular exercise, can help.
There’s also medication like statins, which lower cholesterol (a part of the sticky plaque). These can slow down the process of atherosclerosis, like removing gum from a road to ease the traffic.
Key takeaways
Our bodies are complex and amazing, but sometimes things can go wrong. The discovery by these scientists helps us understand how atherosclerosis can make our bodies age faster.
But there’s hope: by living a healthy lifestyle and taking the right medication, we might be able to slow down this process.
If you care about health, please read studies about how fasting may help reverse high blood pressure, and beetroot juice could help reduce blood pressure
For more information about health, please see recent studies about 5 medicines to treat high blood pressure, and results showing diets high in flavonoids could help reduce stroke risk.
The study was published in European Heart Journal.
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