Effect of Aging On Heart

The knowledge of changes in the system of heart due to aging is important since an increasing number of people are surviving into their seventh decades and beyond. Indeed the number of individual of age 65 years and older will double from 2000 to 2050. The changes associated with aging occur in pericardium, valves, heart chambers, coronory arteries, conduction system, heart muscles and aota which is the largest blood vessel in the body.

With advancing age, the amount of heart fat increases, especially over the anterior surface of the right ventricle and in the atrium. There is also reduction in the size of the left ventricular cavity due to aging and is accentuated by increase blood pressure. This reduction in size can lead to obstruction to blood which leaves through the left ventricle of the heart normally.

Many changes are noted in the valves of heart with aging. These are accumulation of calcium salts in the valves. Since, we know there are four valves of heart namely tricuspid, bicuspid, mitral and aortic. They normally maintain the flow of blood into one direction. Calcification effects mostly mitral and arotic valves and therefore, leads toward narrowing of these valves. Unidirectional flow of blood cannot be maintained and heart then suffers. In addition to this, valves also become thickened with an advancing age as a result of fibrous tissues deposition. This casues mitral valve to buckle back towards the left atrium during ventricular systole and stimulates the mitral prolapse. Moreover, many older people develop some small filiform processes on arotic and mitral valves. These are called limbal excrescences.

Older people myocardium also has fewer myocytes, increased amount of collagenized connective tissues and in some people deposition of amyloid is also present. In muscle cells, the lipofuscin which is a pigment get deposited. In already small sized heart, there extensive amount of accumulation is called brown atrophy.
The coronary arteries, the major blood supplying arteries of the heart become tortous on advancing age due to loss of elasticity as well as due to antherosclerosis formation. Aorta also get dilated.

Thus, when individual become old, there are remarkable changes appear in the heart along with other changes either in the appearance or body. Although the morphologic changes described above are common in older person and they may mimic diseases but most of the time, they appear as clinical cardiac dysfunction in only minority of persons.