Stop Aging of Heart: Substance Aging Your Heart

​A healthy heart moves widely, repeating contraction and expansion. By this movement of the heart, blood is delivered to all over the body and we can maintain our life.
 
But if the function of the heart declines with age, the movement of the heart becomes smaller like the heart itself becomes hard. That makes the contraction and expansion of the heart smaller as well, and sufficient blood can’t be delivered to all over the body. This condition is the aging of the heart. Aging of the heart can cause sudden death such as heart failure even if you were fine the day before it happens.
 
It has been considered so far that the major causes of heart failure were high blood pressure, high cholesterol and others.
 
Recently a substance aging the heart has been discovered.
 
The substance aging the heart exists in everybody’s body. if the substance aging the heart is secreted too much by some influence, negative effects are caused to the muscle of the heart, declining the pump function of the heart.
 
According to a research conducted to 3000 Japanese people, the increase of the substance aging the heart doubled the risk of having heart diseases in 10 years.
 
The substance aging the heart is a type of protein
 
Protein taken from meals is broken down and transformed into various kinds of other protein in the body. The protein aging the heart is one of them.
 
There are about 100 thousand kinds of protein in our body.
Typical protein synthesized in our body are:
Hemoglobin is a type of protein that delivers oxygen to all over the body by moving in the blood.
Insulin is a type of protein which is a hormone controlling blood sugar.
Collagen is a type of protein which consists of skin, bones, blood vessels, etc.
 
The protein aging the heart is Angiopoietin-L2 which is normally secreted from the heart cells and maintains the condition of the heart cells, but over-increase of angiopoietin-L2 damages the muscles of the heart and declines the heart function.
 
Angiopoietin-L2 is secreted from all the body cells.
If it increases too much in the heart, aging of the heart is caused.
If it increases too much in blood vessels, hardening of blood vessel is caused.
If it increases too much in the skin, wrinkles are caused.
According to a research using a mouse, if Angippoietin-L2 is always high, that elevates the risk of developing cancer.
 
What increases Heart aging protein Angiopoietin-L2?
 
One of the causes is aging, but the biggest cause is fat around the heart. Fat cells around the heart also secrete Angiopoietin-L2, so if there is a lot of fat around the heart, the heart function declines.
 
What is the life habit accumulating fat around the heart?
 
The difference between a person with high Angiopoietin-L2 (more fat around the heart) and a person with low Angiopoietin-L2(less fat around the heart) is sitting time (Fig. 1).
 
According to a medical research paper published in US in 2014, regardless of doing exercises, the longer the sitting time is, the more fat around the heart accumulates.
 
Continuing the life habit of sitting for a long time accumulates fat around the heart and other organs.
 
There is a possibility that fat is accumulated around the heart if the weight has gained more than before.
 
If you stand up once within an hour, more calories are consumed than sitting and it is expected to decrease the fat around the heart.
 
Stretching decreases Heart Aging Protein
 
It has turned out that stretching muscles suppresses the production of angiopoietin-L2.
 
In addition to standing up at least once every hour, stretching yourself when you stand up is more effective. When you stretch yourself, raise your arms above your head crossing your fingers with your abdominal muscles stretched.
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