Stress Impedes Proper Blood Flow
 (New York, Reuters Health, 5/20/02)

When Dr. Georg Noll of the University Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, and his colleagues used ultrasound to monitor the blood vessels of healthy subjects while they performed stressful tasks, they found that stress compromised the ability of the blood vessels' lining (the endothelium) to expand to bring more oxygen to muscles, including the heart. In further research, the scientists found that they could stop the constrictive effects on the vessels by blocking the ETa receptor found on endothelium cells, which suggests a new way to deal with the complications of cardiovascular disease.