Aging-related cerebral microvascular degeneration is an important cause of essential hypertension

Blood pressure usually rises with age and most patients with essential hypertension are the elderly people. From the standpoint of physiology, the benefit of increasing blood pressure is to provide adequate oxygenation and nutrition to the brain and other critical organs. They suggest the rise of blood pressure is a compensation for critic organs' hypoperfusion. Brain is the most vulnerable organ to over decrease of blood pressure. It must work with constant and very high blood flow. It is located at the uppermost point of the circulatory system. And cerebral hypoperfusion can effectively raise systemic blood pressure. So we deduce that brain hypoperfusion is an important reason for increased blood pressure in the elderly people. Aging-related microvascular degeneration plays an important role in development of cerebral hypoperfusion. There is a close relationship between microvascular degeneration and essential hypertension. The degenerative changes in microcirculation are found in essential hypertension. Essential hypertension and microvascular degeneration may share similar risk factors. Thus, we hypothesize that aging-related cerebral microvascular degeneration is an important cause of essential hypertension. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.