Figure 1.

Proposed evolutionary model for the detrimental role of vascular mineralocorticoid receptors with modern lifestyle. Recent studies support the concept that mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) in the vasculature are poised to be activated in response to vascular injury to promote vascular constriction, inflammation, thrombosis, remodeling, and fibrosis. Such effects are seen in animal models and humans in response to mechanical vascular injury, obesity, hypertension, and aging. Such a localized vascular MR response might have benefited early humans by contributing to recovery from traumatic injury and survival to reproduce. In the modern age, vessel damage from a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet promotes diffuse vascular MR activation that contributes to post-reproductive cardiovascular diseases including hypertension, heart attack, stroke, aortic aneurism, and heart and kidney failure.