Blood vessels provide your brain cells with sugars, oxygen and other nutrients required to function. The development of new blood vessels helps maintain a blood supply to all the tissues within your brain. All blood vessels contain a lining of thin cells, called endothelial cells, that allow nutrients from the blood to enter the surrounding brain tissue. Larger blood vessels, such as veins, venules, arteries and arterioles, also contain a lining of muscle cells that provide structural support to the vessel, as well as an outer layer of flattened epithelial cells to protect the vessel from surrounding tissue. A number of nutrients from your diet contribute to angiogenesis, helping to build new blood vessels within your brain.
Process of Blood Vessel Development
The process of generating new blood vessels from an existing blood supply is called angiogenesis. It involves the growth of branches off an existing blood vessel and the development of those branches into functional vessels of their own. The process begins by the organization of endothelial cells that will form the lining of the new blood vessels. Chemical processes promote the proliferation and maturation of functional endothelial cells, and then help arrange the cells into the tubes that will become functional blood vessels. Additional chemical signals trigger the development of smooth muscle cells that will line the larger blood vessels, as well as epithelial cells that line the outside surface of larger blood vessels. Once the structure of the new blood vessel has been constructed, your brain can begin to utilize this new blood supply.
Role of Proteins
Proteins from your diet play an important role in blood vessel development throughout your body, including in your brain. The proteins you eat are broken down and re-used to make human proteins within your cells and tissues. Since each of the cells involved in blood vessel development contain protein, and generating new blood vessels requires the synthesis of several thousand protein molecules, adequate protein from your diet provides the tools that allow for blood vessel development within your brain. Protein deficiency can also have a number of other negative health effects, such as hair loss and impaired wound healing.
Role of Vitamin C
The essential nutrient vitamin C also contributes to angiogenesis within your brain. The lining of blood vessel walls contains collagen, required to provide the vessel walls with strength and resist rupturing. Vitamin C helps your body generate collagen, and therefore contributes to blood vessel formation. Vitamin C also aids in the maturation of the endothelial cells that line your blood vessel walls, according to a study published in "The Journal of Sexual Medicine" in 2010. As a result, deficiencies in vitamin C may disrupt multiple steps of blood vessel formation within the brain, inhibiting endothelial cell development, as well as weakening other structures within blood vessel walls.
Role of Vitamin A
Another nutrient that contributes to blood vessel formation in the brain is retinoic acid, a form of vitamin A. A study published in "Endocrinology" in 2007 indicates that vitamin A signaling helps promote the proliferation of endothelial cells, helping to provide the cell numbers required for new blood vessel development. In addition, vitamin A promotes the secretion of other hormones responsible for angiogenesis, such as vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF, to further promote the formation of new blood vessels. As a result, consuming adequate vitamin A may help support proper angiogenesis in the brain, as well as the rest of the body.
