( azing living pump--your heart--sends ab...)Researchers show that veins stiffen as we age

azing living pump--your heart--sends about five quarts of blood through the 60,000-mile network of arteries, capillaries and veins in your body. The muscular arteries carry blood away from the heart and out to your organs and limbs. Microscopic capillaries connect the arteries to the veins. The veins then transport the blood back to the heart.

The veins are equipped with valves to prevent any backflow of blood caused by gravity as blood is returned to the heart from the lower extremities. The walls of the veins are made of collagen and elastin, two proteins that give the tube-like blood vessels flexibility and help them to maintain your blood pressure.

To determine if there are age-related differences in how our veins work, the research team recruited 24 people for their study--12 healthy young adults between the ages of 18 and 30, and 12 healthy older adults between 60 and 70 years old. Each individual underwent medical screening at Christiana Hospital, which included a lipid profile, blood pressure monitoring, electrocardiogram and several other tests to ensure overall good health.

Then each participant was involved in a series of research trials at UD's Human Performance Lab on the Newark campus. While each subject lay resting on a gurney, various gauges, connected to computers, were placed on their arms and legs. An arterial cuff was attached to an upper arm to monitor blood pressure, and venous cuffs were placed around the upper thigh and upper arm to measure the blood flow to the limbs.

As the cuffs were inflated over an eight-minute period, and then slowly deflated to let blood escape from the limbs, the blood volume was measured, recorded, and graphed. The consistently lower blood volume under pressure pointed to the less springy veins of the older participants.

Graphic courtesy of the American Medical Association "

Based on previous research, we suspected that the veins of the older adults would be less f
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Source:University of Delaware

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