What is angiotensin 2?

Have you ever heard of this strange-sounding chemical called angiotensin 2? No? Well, don’t worry. Today, we’re going to learn all about it.

To really understand what angiotensin 2 is, we first have to start with its precursor: angiotensin I.

Angiotensin I is a protein that lives in your blood vessels and organs. It’s not particularly interesting by itself, but when it meets up with an enzyme called renin (which hangs out in your kidneys), things get a little more exciting.

You see, when renin and angiotensin I get together, they form…angiotensin II! Cue the dramatic music!

This new chemical concoction packs quite the punch. Here are just a few of its incredible abilities:

  1. Vasoconstriction: Angiostein II makes your blood vessels narrow by contracting the smooth muscle cells that line them.
  2. Increased Blood Pressure: With narrowed blood vessels comes higher resistance to blood flow – cue high blood pressure.
  3. Thirst: Who needs voluntary water intake anyway? When angiostein II constricts your renal arteries it results in decreased renal function and stimulates thirst as well.

So now you may be wondering: why on earth would our bodies want to produce something so potentially harmful?

Well my dears, here’s where things get complicated.

For starters, one key point to keep in mind is that many of these effects are only temporary – once the body gets rid of angiostein, things will usually return back to normal.

Secondly, some of these “effects” actually serve important physiological functions at appropriate times – like when your body is trying to regulate its blood pressure.

So let’s talk about this regulation for a second. It all comes down to something called the renin-angiotensin system – or RAS, for short.

The RAS is essentially a cascade of chemical reactions that helps your body maintain its fluid balance and blood pressure. When you’re dehydrated or low on fluids, your kidneys will release renin into the bloodstream, and it will start chopping up angiotensin I into angiotensin II (remember?)

Once we’ve got lots of angiostein floating around in our bodies , it can set off all those effects we talked about earlier: making us thirsty, narrowing our vessels, and increasing our blood volume till everything reaches equilibrium again.

The effects listed so far are just the tip of an informative iceberg.

Angiostein 2 also has other roles throughout the boody including:

  • Regulation of Aldosterone secretion.
  • Control over sympathetic nervous systems activity
  • Coronary vasoconstriction

As if that wasn’t enough introduction to Biochemistry for you guys…

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the insidious workhorses driving chronic illness aren’t drug muggers, but actually small-to-tiny things such as molecules , chemicals and oxidants found within various bio-pathways in different parts/places/junctures where these injure proclivities occur. One class of villains includes Anguotensionogen(AGT), Rennin(RENI), ACE1&ACE2 enzymes and their favorite subject aka ‘ANGII’.

YeahAKA: You heard me right: angiotensin II could be one big root cause behind many long-term health issues!

In fact, research has linked it to:

  • Chronic kidney disease and failure
  • Cardiovascular disease, including hypertension and heart attacks
  • Neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s

By this point, you might be wondering: “Okay, but what does all of this mean for me?”

Fair enough. Here are a few key takeaways:

  1. Your body produces angiotensin II naturally – it’s not some foreign chemical that we need to avoid completely.
  2. However:, having too much of it may lead to long-term health issues.
  3. Many common blood pressure medications work by inhibiting the RAS pathway in different ways.

What can one possibly do ? Good question!

So how can you keep your levels of angiostein under control? Again, another good question! Here are a few things you could try:

  1. Maintain healthy blood pressures via getting adequate sleep , proper hydration status and daily exercise routine if able.
    2 Inhibit ACE (Angiotensin convertase enzymes) with available medication particularly those classified as ACE inhibitors
    4 Shield the AT-1 receptors from being activated(aka blocking them with receptor blockers).
    5 Repress AGT production through fatty acid metabolism modulation or omega 3 supplementation
    6 Control rennin secretion

Take Home Points:

 Angiosteins perform important regulation functions within our system  
 These chemicals affect various systems throughout the body beyond BP raise     
 Proper control mechanisms inhibits disturbance in various pathways which aid limit long term consequences when left unchecked

        # So Now You Know!

    And there you have it folks - everything you've ever wanted (or not wanted) to know about angiotensin II ! Hopefully next time someone brings up this particularly obscure substance at your dinner party](https://larshaima.com/index.php/contact-me/) , you'll have a little more to say than just, "Uh, what?"

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