If you’re wondering what angiogenesis, all you have to do is break the word apart and identify the meaning of each part. Angio relates to the blood vessels and genesis is a suffix that means the beginning or development of something. Put them together and they mean the study of how blood vessels develop. Throughout your life, capillaries grow and diminish, based on the need at the time. If you have a wound, more capillaries grow to help it heal. That’s caused by a release of chemicals that induce the growth or splitting of blood vessels to create more.
When you don’t have enough blood vessels, you have a potential for heart disease.
Angiogenesis is neither bad nor good. If you have cancer, you have too many blood vessels being created, however, if you have heart disease, it may be because there’s not enough blood vessels being developed. The process needs to be balanced and when it gets out of whack, you have disease. That perfect balance makes it more difficult to treat. There are cancer treatments that block the development of blood vessels that feed the cancer, but stifling the growth of blood vessels too much can lead to other problems like valvular heart disease.
The dilemma continues, but what can you do.
I wouldn’t be a personal trainer if I didn’t believe in the positive and healing effects of a healthy diet and regular exercise. It’s not that I don’t believe in modern medicine and choose alternatives instead, but rather I believe the two can work together to boost the body’s health and maintain a more youthful body. One of the biggest problems with modern medicine is that everyone is different and has different needs. Dosage, specific medications and body chemicals are all different, too. It means there is no ONE magic bullet that works for every disease, even if it’s the same disease in a different person.
Until science finds a way to customize each and every treatment, you can help by making healthy lifestyle choices.
Ironically, increased angiogenesis not only can feed cancer, it can also cause obesity. When your body can’t cut out excess blood vessels or grow enough, it causes illness or negative changes in the body. Cancer cells require a blood source to survive, just as fat cells do. The more blood vessels you have, the more cancer cells can grow and the more fat you have. Eating the right foods can help get your body back to the perfect balance of producing enough to avoid stroke, heart disease and neuropathy, but not so many you have cancer, obesity, endometriosis and blindness.
- Foods that help regulate angiogenesis by slowing the process include red grapes, green tea, kale, nutmeg, turmeric, parsley, berries of all kinds. garlic and artichokes.
- Studies show that strawberries and red grapes can help inhibit abnormal angiogenesis. It’s the resveratrol in the grapes and ellagic acid in the strawberries that can inhibit abnormal growth by 60 percent or more.
- The phytonutrients in food work in synergy to boost the effect of individual nutrients found in the each food.
- The same foods that help prevent excessive angiogenesis, also promotes the appropriate development of blood vessels, making them good whether you have heart disease, cancer or any number of diseases caused by angiogenesis that’s out of balance.