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Review
. 2017 Apr;9(2):131-137.
doi: 10.1007/s12551-017-0255-9. Epub 2017 Mar 20.

Cardiac aging and heart disease in humans

Marja Steenman  1 , Gilles Lande  2
Affiliations
Review

Cardiac aging and heart disease in humans

Marja Steenman et al. Biophys Rev. 2017 Apr.

Abstract

The world population continues to grow older rapidly, mostly because of declining fertility and increasing longevity. Since age represents the largest risk factor for cardiovascular disease, the prevalence of these pathologies increases dramatically with increasing age. In order to improve patient care and prevention for age-related cardiac diseases, insight should be gained from the analysis of processes involved in and leading to cardiac aging. It is from this perspective that we provide here an overview of changes associated with age in the heart on four levels: functional, structural, cellular and molecular. We highlight those changes that are in common with the development of the two major age-associated cardiac pathologies: heart failure and atrial fibrillation. These commonly affected processes in aging and cardiac pathophysiology may provide an explanation for the age risk factor in cardiac disease.

Keywords: Aging; Atrial fibrillation; Heart; Heart failure.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interests

Marja Steenman declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Gilles Lande declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic overview of changes associated with cardiac aging and their link with heart failure and atrial fibrillation. Red boxes indicate changes associated with human heart failure, blue boxes indicate changes associated with human atrial fibrillation
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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