What you can do to make your arteries younger

From our forties, the arteries start to harden, causing blood pressure to rise. Here’s what the experts say we should do to anti-age them.

If you don’t stretch or do yoga, start a simple regimen. Picture: istock

Even if you look the picture of health in middle age, your insides may tell a different story. In most of us there are many signs of ageing invisible to the naked eye, including that, from our forties and fifties, our arteries are hardening. In decline are the healthy, pliable blood vessels of youth that reliably expand and contract for every pulse of oxygenated blood from the heart, to be replaced by arteries that are stiffening with age. The upshot? As elasticity diminishes and artery walls become inflexible, the blood flow through them is less smooth, more erratic. Blood pressure rises, circulation to vital organs is affected and, well, you know the outcome.

Yet what if we could preserve our arteries with anti-ageing strategies that keep them young? It’s a question that has intrigued researchers. In the latest of these investigations, published in The Journal of Physiology, a team from the University of Milan’s department of biomedical sciences for health found that a programme of simple passive stretches - the kind that require you to stay in one position for a set time - effectively restored some of the youthful attributes of arteries by decreasing their stiffness and making it easier for them to dilate.

As elasticity diminishes and artery walls become inflexible, the blood flow through them is less smooth, more erratic.

The team assigned 39 healthy participants to a “stretching group” who performed leg stretches five times a week or a control group who did no stretching. After 12 weeks of tests to evaluate how the stretches affected blood flow in the legs and upper arms, the researchers found that there was increased blood flow and dilation along with decreased arterial stiffness in both areas of the body.

“Arteries are dynamic connective tissue, meaning they stretch and tighten like muscles, tendons and ligaments, and therefore could benefit from the same physical dynamic loading processes,” says Jim Pate, an exercise physiologist at the Centre for Health and Human Performance in Harley Street. “This is the latest of an emerging field of evidence that shows loading arteries through static stretches promotes good physical vascular health.”

It won’t work on its own - aerobic exercise such as walking, swimming and cycling still holds the trump card - but as an adjunct to an active lifestyle, stretching may help to turn back the arterial clock. And there are other ways to make your arteries more youthful. Here are five steps:

DO THESE STRETCHES FIVE TIMES A WEEK

If you don’t stretch or do yoga, start a simple regimen. In the University of Milan study, the stretching groups did five weekly sessions in which they performed leg stretches of 45 seconds’ duration on each leg with 15 seconds’ rest between each. They repeated each stretch five times and included versions of these:

1. Hamstring stretch. Lie on the floor, legs straight out, and loop a resistance band under your left foot, holding each end of the band with your hands. Keeping your left knee slightly bent, lift the left heel so that your foot travels towards the ceiling and hold when you feel a good stretch.

2. Simple quadriceps stretch. Stand with your feet hip-width apart, slightly bending the knee of your right leg. Pulling the foot of your left leg with your left hand, lift it as far as you can towards your bottom. Hold the stretch for 45 seconds.

3. Advanced quadriceps stretch. Adopt a kneeling lunge position with your right foot in front of your body (knee bent, foot flat on the floor) and your left knee behind your body. Reach back and grab your left ankle with your left hand, pulling the foot towards your bottom until you feel a stretch at the front of your thigh.

4. Ankle dorsiflexion. Stand with your back against a wall and shuffle your feet slightly forward. Pivot on to your heels and lift your toes as high off the ground as you can. Hold that position as you feel a stretch in your shin muscles.

TAKE UP RUNNING

Of all aerobic exercise, running might top the lot as an arterial anti-ager. In January researchers from University College London published findings of a study, part-funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), that had looked at the effects of running on a group of first-timers in the London Marathon. They discovered that, in training for and completing the event, the novices knocked four years off the age of their arteries. In six months their blood vessels were more flexible and healthy on training schedules of an average 6-13 miles a week.

Improvements were most impressive in the oldest, slowest runners, says the study author Dr Charlotte Manisty, a consulting cardiologist at the UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science and Barts Heart Centre. “Those runners with the stiffest arteries at the outset seemed to see the greatest changes,” she says. “This is reassuring because it suggests that those who are the least fit at the start of training are those who have the most to gain and will derive the largest benefit.”

Of all aerobic exercise, running might top the lot as an arterial anti-ager.

In addition to improvements that showed “an equivalent reduction to many blood pressure medications”, the runners’ arteries became less stiff, with the greatest changes in the blood vessels moving away from the heart. “The improvements were equivalent to a reduction in vascular age of four years,” Manisty says as, in effect, their arteries became biologically younger. And you don’t need to run a marathon to reap the benefits. “Our results can likely be extrapolated to runners completing other training regimes at a similar intensity and over a similar time frame,” Manisty says. “Obviously the changes may not be so significant if the training is less.”

EXERCISE FOUR TIMES A WEEK

You must work out at least four times a week to get results for your arteries, says Professor Benjamin Levine, a sports cardiologist at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre. In a 2018 study he found that the major arteries of committed exercisers were more youthful and healthy than those who exercised only a couple of times a week.

You must work out at least four times a week to get results for your arteries, says Professor Benjamin Levine.

In one trial involving a group of previously sedentary middle-aged men and women, Levine showed that their artery and heart health improved two years after they started exercising - brisk walking, jogging and short intervals - four or five times a week. Those who just stretched did not see the same results.

Pate says that four or more sessions with a range of activities is best. “Stretching may help our arteries in more ways than we realise, but if you aren’t doing any aerobic activity and are only stretching, then you are trying to bail out the sinking ship with a teaspoon instead of a bucket,” he says. “Aerobic exercise is established as the best way to impact and improve vascular health, and you can’t get away without doing it, but add other elements to enhance the benefits.”

STICK TO NO MORE THAN FIVE CUPS OF COFFEE A DAY

Coffee drinkers breathed a sigh of relief last year when researchers from Queen Mary University of London announced that even 25 cups of the strong black stuff is not associated with stiffening arteries. In their study of 8,412 people, funded by the BHF, they debunked previous studies that a coffee habit led to ageing of the arteries, with Dr Kenneth Fung, who led the data analysis for the study, saying: “Our research indicates coffee isn’t as bad for the arteries as previous studies would suggest.”

Stick to no more than five cups of coffee per day, experts say. Picture: istock

However, it wasn’t a green light to drink as much as you like, with Fung stressing that “although our study included individuals who drink up to 25 cups a day, the average intake among the highest coffee consumption group was five cups a day”. Victoria Taylor, a dietitian for the BHF, says four or five cups a day remains the advice. “That level shouldn’t be detrimental to your arteries and heart health, affect your cholesterol levels or heart rhythm,” she says.

EAT NO MORE THAN 70G RED MEAT A DAY

Tuck into a juicy steak too often and it could accelerate ageing of your arteries, according to a recent study at the University of Colorado. When breaking down the protein in food, our gut bacteria metabolise the amino acids it contains, which are converted by the liver into a chemical called trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO). It is released into the bloodstream when we eat protein-rich foods, but particularly in response to red meat. The Colorado team found that too much TMAO in adults’ blood causes accelerated age-related tissue damage of arteries, resulting in the blood vessels functioning less effectively.

Vienna Brunt, the postdoctoral researcher who conducted the study, says that everyone, including those on a plant-based or vegan diet, produces TMAO, but that, over time, red meat takes its toll. Processed meat has myriad ill effects on our health, but even lean red meat should be reduced to less than 70g a day, Taylor says. “Reducing the amount you eat will help to lower the amount of saturated fat in the diet which can have a detrimental impact on your entire cardiovascular system.”

The Times