The Glycocalyx Explained A Protective Gel Lining of the Capillaries - YouTube
Could you have imagined that one of the most essential elements for your good health lies in a vast protective gel lining of all of your capillaries that touches each of your trillions of cells … and most likely, you’ve never even heard about it.
Come with me as we travel inside your vascular system and flow along with your blood. Every cell of your body is nourished by the blood that travels through the capillaries that make up 99% of your circulatory system-from head to toe.
Placed end-to-end, scientists estimate they would extend 60,000 miles, enough to go around the earth two and a half times. With every heartbeat, vital nutrients and oxygen are delivered and waste is removed from each cell. This essential process breaks down with aging, poor diet, lack of exercise, genetics, stress and smoking.
New medical science has revealed the importance of a transparent micro-thin gel-like lining in your blood vessels that protects your entire circulatory system.
In the past, blood vessels were thought to be simple hollow tubes. But with today’s high resolution video microscopes, a discovery reveals that the entire circulatory system is coated with a gel like lining that protects the inside walls of the arteries, veins and capillaries.
This protective gel-like lining of the capillaries and all other blood vessels is called the glycocalyx. Its integrity is essential to the healthy function of all the cells, organs and body systems.
The glycocalyx keeps your body healthy in three critical ways.
First, it functions as the natural trigger that stimulates the production of nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is vital in controlling blood flow and blood pressure.
The glycocalyx stores anti-oxidants and, working together with nitric oxide, both increase blood flow, on demand, when organs call for it.
For example, when you’re walking upstairs. Or even when your brain is working through a difficult problem.
Bottom line: your body needs a thick and healthy glycocalyx to efficiently regulate blood flow.
Second, a healthy glycocalyx allows your body to engage more of the available capillaries of the microvascular system when blood flow increases.
This is critical to regulate the supply of nutrients and oxygen, and the removal of waste and carbon dioxide, according to the body’s level of activity, such as when you exercise.
Bottom line: While blood flow control is important, the glycocalyx allows your body to engage more capillaries when organs demand nourishment and waste removal.
Third, capillaries are much more than simple hollow tubes. In fact, their inner surface is coated with the non-stick glycocalyx that prevents loss of capillaries through fluid leakage, blood clotting and inflammation.
This coating prevents sticking when you don’t need it, and it keeps blood clotting and inflammation under control. For example, when your body’s healthy, it can repair a simple cut or fight an infection.
Bottom line: a healthy glycocalyx not only engages more capillaries when blood flow goes up, but it also protects the capillary network and even the entire vascular system from deterioration and loss.
Ongoing clinical research from more than 50 studies confirms that a compromised glycocalyx and a damaged microvascular system are linked to organ starvation. Early warning signs of organ starvation include cold hands and feet, leg cramps, skin problems, hair thinning, fatigue, lack of focus, memory loss, certain eye problems, hearing loss, severe PMS, erectile dysfunction, high blood pressure, and even type 2 diabetes.
Emerging research is beginning to show that it’s not too late to slow down, or even reverse, the breakdown of the protective properties of the glycocalyx.
More at https://microvascular.com/
