Effect of exercise on arterial compliance.

In an era of molecular biology, “gene therapy,” and increasingly sophisticated technological approaches to treat cardiovascular disease, it is easy to overlook the physical forces generated by and acting on the human cardiovascular system. In this issue of Circulation, Tanaka and colleagues1 report that aerobic exercise training can blunt the age-associated stiffening of large blood vessels in humans. In this context, why is this important, what are some of Tanaka and colleagues’ key observations, and what mechanisms might explain them?