Why does angiogenesis matter?

Angiogenesis, the process of forming new blood vessels, is important because these blood vessels deliver necessary oxygen to the body. William Li, MD, a specialist in angiogenesis, explains this and more.

Transcript

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There are common threads that link health and disease. And if we learn to think about our bodies

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from the process that keeps us healthy we're able to anchor our thinking scientifically, medically from a research perspective as well

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as a practice perspective into what we need to do to keep those healthy systems functioning in the right way.

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[MUSIC PLAYING] Angiogenesis is the process our bodies

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use to grow blood vessels. It's actually a critical process because every cell and organ

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in our body needs to have oxygen. And that's what blood vessels do, they bring the oxygen that we breathe in,

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and they deliver it to all of our cells so we can stay alive and healthy. On the other hand, when there are problems in balancing angiogenesis,

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we have either too many blood vessels or not enough. The important implication of angiogenesis

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is that this is a common denominator in not only health, but it's also a common denominator in disease, cancer,

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heart disease, stroke, blindness, obesity, diabetes. The list goes on.

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But these are really the major cripplers and killers of society today. And I ask myself what if, what if this area of angiogenesis

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would give us the clues to be able to conquer those unbeatable diseases? And while I started 20 years ago focusing on angiogenesis

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as a common denominator of disease what I've now realized is that angiogenesis is even more important as a common denominator in health.

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So we can keep our bodies angiogenesis systems functioning, healthy and angiogenesis

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could be like the immune system, inflammatory system, the blood clotting system. And be one of those hallmark systems of the body that

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allow us to stay healthy. And that's the message that I think we can start to communicate and translate into people

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who are healthy and keep them from going to the doctor's office.