Turkish Journal of
GERIATRICS

Ege Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi, Kardiyoloji Anabilim Dalı, İZMİR Cardiac function is altered with increasing age. Aging of the cardiovascular system involves heart, coronary arteries and the other body vessels. These changes are increasing of turtuosity of the arteries, endothelial dysfunction, reducing production of prostacycline and endothelium-derived relaxing factor, altering left ventricular relaxation and cellular degeneration, reduction of the contractile mass and increase of fibrous tissue. In addition, the calcifications of the cardiac valves are occurred predominantly at the mitral and/or the aortic valves. In this paper these cardiac changes which are characteristic of physiologic aging are discussed. Keywords : Cardiovascular disease; Aged