Tips on How to Keep Your Arteries Healthy

By now, most of us know how important it is to stay active as you age. You may have noticed that it’s much easier to get worn out while exercising, or that your muscles or joints are a bit stiffer than they used to be. This is all a normal part of aging, but still it’s so important to maintain an active lifestyle to optimize your health and avoid the chronic health problems associated with a sedentary lifestyle.

One key factor that affects your exercise stamina is the health of your arteries, which impacts how well blood can travel through your blood vessels to the various tissues throughout your entire body. And unfortunately, when your arterial health is compromised, your stamina is affected.

Lifestyle factors can also affect arterial health and physical endurance, so it’s important to lead a healthy lifestyle (which includes regular physical activity).

In this article, you will learn:

• Why physical activity is a key component of healthy aging,
• The relationship between arterial health and physical activity,
• How aging affects arteries,
• And how ThymoGel®, a potent black cumin seed oil supplement, may help improve blood pressure and arterial health to help you feel your best and lead an active lifestyle.

Importance of Physical Activity in Aging

Physical activity offers numerous benefits, especially as you age. Here are some of the main benefits of regular exercise:

• Maintain or increase muscle mass.
  Muscle mass naturally declines during aging, which can lead to declines in physical ability and strength. However, regular exercise helps to maintain or even build new muscle mass. It’s important to include resistance or weightlifting in your workouts to help promote muscle health. (1)
  
  
• Maintain bone density.
  Especially in women, bone density can decline rapidly with age. Porous bones are more prone to fractures and breakage. However, regular physical activity can help to maintain bone density or even to increase bone density in people who already have osteoporosis. Note: walking alone isn’t enough to build bone mass, but it can help to prevent further bone loss. Other activities that help improve bone mass include weight bearing exercises like jogging and stair climbing, resistance exercises like weightlifting or swimming, and multicomponent exercises like dancing or aerobics. (2)
  
  
• Optimize joint health.
  For people withjoint pain in their hips or knees, exercise therapy is one of the key treatments. Exercise can also help to strengthen the joints and prevent future pain. (3)
  
  
• Improve mental health.
  Another important benefit of physical activity is its effect on mental health. Numerous research studies have found that exercise improves mood and may help to reduce stress and feelings of sadness. Outdoor exercise offers the added benefit of fresh air and vitamin D (which your body can synthesize from sun exposure). (4, 5)
  
  
• Protect against cognitive decline.
  Finally, physical activity may help to protect against age-related cognitive decline and memory loss. Exercise helps to increase “neuroplasticity,” which refers to the brain’s ability to protect or restore cognitive function. One large review of several studies found that regular exercise improved brain function in people over 50 years old, regardless of their baseline brain function. Meaning that, even in people who weren’t dealing with any cognitive decline, exercise improved their cognition. Additionally, exercise helped to reduce cognitive decline in people who were already dealing with it. (6)

According to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, you should aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise each week, along with 2 resistance training sessions for muscle growth. (7)

Healthy Arteries and Physical Activity

Healthy arteries ensure that your tissues are well-oxygenated. Your body’s complex and intricate system of blood vessels carries oxygenated blood from your heart to the farthest corners of your body.

Unfortunately, if you have poor circulation from compromised arterial health, your tissues may not be getting enough oxygen to see you through an exercise session. 

You may feel fatigue or even dizziness when you push yourself too hard. 

The Effect of Aging and Lifestyle on Arterial Health

As you age, your muscle mass naturally declines, along with a decrease in bone density. You are also more predisposed to cognitive changes.

However, these changes can be accelerated by unhealthy lifestyle choices. So, it’s important to lead a healthy lifestyle to maintain your optimal health for as long as possible. Some ways to support healthy arteries include:

• Regular exercise.Regular exercise can help keep your arteries in tip-top shape. It gets your blood pumping. Start out as slow as you need to but aim to work your way up to at least 150 minutes per week.
• Losing weight. Excess weight puts stress on your bones and joints and may cause your blood vessels to be more constricted than they would otherwise be. This can lead to elevated blood pressure, which can be damaging to your arteries.
• Taking certain supplements. Certain supplements, like black cumin seed oil, may help to reduce blood pressure levels and improve arterial health.

How Thymogel Can Help You Stay Active

Thymogel is a powerful supplement from Juvenon that helps to promote healthy blood pressure levels and arteries using the power of black cumin seed oil, from theNigella sativa plant.

Just one softgel daily is packed with 500 mg of the potent ThymoQuin, which consists of 100% black cumin seed oil — providing consistently effective amounts of the antioxidant thymoquinone in each and every dose.

Here’s how black cumin seed oil and ThymoGel® may help you stay active as you age.

Endothelial Flexibility

One of the key benefits of black cumin seed oil is that it promotes endothelial flexibility. The endothelium is the lining of each blood vessel. A healthy endothelium has a high degree of flexibility, allowing the arteries to constrict or widen as necessary. (8)

This helps dictate both blood pressure and blood flow. When the endothelium widens the vessel, blood flow increases and blood pressure lowers. When the endothelium causes the vessel to constrict, blood pressure increases and blood flow decreases.

As we’ve already discussed, aging can affect the endothelium and make it more resistant to flexion, causing both high blood pressure and reduced blood flow. This affects the amount of oxygen getting to your tissues, which can lead to reduced stamina and early fatigue.

Over time, this elevated blood pressure and reduced arterial function can have major implications for your heart health as well.

And again, we know that certain lifestyle factors can accelerate the negative effects of aging on arterial health.

However, black cumin seed oil may help to ameliorate these effects and restore healthy endothelial responsiveness and arterial function. (8)

Increased Nitric Oxide

One of the key ways that black cumin seed oil may help to improve blood pressure and blood flow is through protecting against nitric oxide losses.

Nitric oxide is a gas produced by your cells that signals the endothelium to dilate, widening the blood vessels and lowering blood pressure while increasing blood flow. (9)

Nitric oxide is so powerful, many athletes takenitric oxide boosters as part of their pre-workout nutrition regimen.

Black cumin seed oil is thought to promote arterial health in part because it appears to preserve nitric oxide. (9)

Other Functions

Other additional ways that black cumin seed oil may promote healthy aging are through acting as a diuretic, reducing nervous system overactivity, and improving blood sugar levels.

As a diuretic, black cumin seed oil may help you to get rid of excess fluids more effectively, flushing your body of waste products as well as getting rid of excess fluids that may be causing your blood pressure to be elevated. (10)

Black cumin seed may also help to regulate the nervous system. In a constant state of stress (as many of us are), your nervous system can be overactive — causing your blood pressure to consistently remain more elevated than usual. This can affect your arteries. However, black cumin seed may help your body to be able to adapt to stress more effectively and come out of “fight or flight” mode — which can help optimize your arterial health. (11)

Finally, black cumin seed may also help to improve your blood sugar levels by regulating insulin, the major hormone that plays a role in blood sugar regulation. There appears to be a strong link between blood pressure and insulin, so improving blood sugar levels results in reduced insulin needs over time — which may help to reduce blood pressure. (12, 13)

All of these changes and improvements may result in improved arterial health, helping you to feel more vitality and less fatigue.

Summary

Physical activity is key for maintaining muscle mass, bone and joint strength, and mental wellness. It’s extremely important to continue exercising as you get older, as aging can affect your muscle mass, bone strength, and cognitive function.

If you have poor artery health, you may find that it’s difficult to work out for longer periods of time (or even just to get through a busy day) without significant fatigue. 

Fortunately, there are several ways to help naturally improve artery health, including slowly increasing your physical activity, losing weight, and taking Juvenon’s powerful Thymogel supplement.

ThymoGel® is made from high quality black cumin seed oil, which may help to improve arterial function by acting as a diuretic, increasing nitric oxide production, regulating blood sugar and insulin levels, and improving endothelial function.

These lifestyle strategies, and a convenient daily dose of ThymoGel®, can help you to maintain your active lifestyle well into the future, ensuring that you are able to optimize your health and defend against the physical and cognitive changes that arise with aging.

References

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2. Benedetti MG, Furlini G, Zati A, Letizia Mauro G. The Effectiveness of Physical Exercise on Bone Density in Osteoporotic Patients.Biomed Res Int.2018;2018:4840531. Published 2018 Dec 23. doi:10.1155/2018/4840531
3. Skou ST, Roos EM. Physical therapy for patients with knee and hip osteoarthritis: supervised, active treatment is current best practice [published correction appears in Clin Exp Rheumatol. 2020 Sep-Oct;38(5):1036].Clin Exp Rheumatol.2019;37 Suppl 120(5):112-117.
4. White RL, Babic MJ, Parker PD, Lubans DR, Astell-Burt T, Lonsdale C. Domain-Specific Physical Activity and Mental Health: A Meta-analysis.Am J Prev Med. 2017;52(5):653-666. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2016.12.008
5. Thompson Coon J, Boddy K, Stein K, Whear R, Barton J, Depledge MH. Does participating in physical activity in outdoor natural environments have a greater effect on physical and mental wellbeing than physical activity indoors? A systematic review.Environ Sci Technol.2011;45(5):1761-1772. doi:10.1021/es102947t
6. Northey JM, Cherbuin N, Pumpa KL, Smee DJ, Rattray B. Exercise interventions for cognitive function in adults older than 50: a systematic review with meta-analysis. Br J Sports Med. 2018;52(3):154-160. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2016-096587
7. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; 2018. Retrieved fromhttps://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Physical_Activity_Guidelines_2nd_edition.pdf
8. Ahmad A, Khan RM, Alkharfy KM. Effects of selected bioactive natural products on the vascular endothelium.J Cardiovasc Pharmacol.2013;62(2):111-121. doi:10.1097/FJC.0b013e3182927e47
9. Jaarin K, Foong WD, Yeoh MH, et al. Mechanisms of the antihypertensive effects of Nigella sativa oil in L-NAME-induced hypertensive rats.Clinics (Sao Paulo).2015;70(11):751-757. doi:10.6061/clinics/2015(11)07
10. Asif M, Jabeen Q, Abdul Majid AM, Atif M. Diuretic activity of aqueous extract of Nigella sativa in albino rats.Acta Pol Pharm.2015;72(1):129-135.
11. Beheshti F, Khazaei M, Hosseini M. Neuropharmacological effects of Nigella sativa.Avicenna J Phytomed. 2016;6(1):104-116.
12. Najmi A, Nasiruddin M, Khan RA, Haque SF. Effect of Nigella sativa oil on various clinical and biochemical parameters of insulin resistance syndrome.Int J Diabetes Dev Ctries.2008;28(1):11-14. doi:10.4103/0973-3930.41980
13. Wang H, Tian Y, Chen Y, Shen X, Pan L, Li G. Hyperinsulinemia rather than insulin resistance itself induces blood pressure elevation in high fat diet-fed rats.Clin Exp Hypertens.2020;42(7):614-621. doi:10.1080/10641963.2020.1756316