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Skin plays a surprising role in regulating blood pressure and heart rate, Skin is the largest organ, covering two square metres in humans – helps regulate blood pressure and heart rate in response to changes in the amount of oxygen available in the environment.
High blood pressure is associated with cardiovascular disease, such as heart attack and stroke. For the vast majority of cases of high blood pressure, there is no known cause. It is often associated with reduced flow of blood through small blood vessels in the skin and other parts of the body, a symptom which can get progressively worse if the hypertension is not treated.
Previous research has shown that when a tissue is starved of oxygen – as can happen in areas of high altitude, or in response to pollution, smoking or obesity, for example – blood flow to that tissue will increase. In such situations, this increase in blood flow is controlled in part by the ‘HIF’ family of proteins.
To investigate what role the skin plays in the flow of blood through small vessels, a team of researchers exposed mice to low-oxygen conditions. These mice had been genetically modified so that they are unable to produce certain HIF proteins in the skin.
The study was set up to understand the feedback loop between the skin and the cardiovascular system. By working with mice. Researchers were able to manipulate key genes involved in this loop. They discovered that in mice lacking one of two proteins in the skin HIF-1α or HIF-2α, the response to low levels of oxygen changed compared to normal mice and that this affected their heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature and general levels of activity.
Mice lacking specific proteins controlled by the HIFs also responded in a similar way.
In addition, the response of normal, healthy mice to oxygen starvation was more complex than expected. In the first ten minutes, blood pressure and heart rate rise, and this is followed by a period of 36 hours where blood pressure and heart rate decrease below normal levels. 48 hours after exposure to low levels of oxygen and blood pressure the heart rate levels had returned to normal.
Loss of the HIF proteins or other proteins involved in the response to oxygen starvation in the skin, was discovered to change when this process starts and how long it takes. Skin’s response to low levels of oxygen may have substantial effects on how the heart pumps blood around the body.
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