Vasodilators are medications that open (dilate) blood vessels. They affect the muscles in the walls of your arteries and veins, preventing the muscles from tightening and the walls from narrowing.It is defined as a clinical condition which is characterized by widening of blood vessels due to excess relaxation of muscular wall of the vessels. The medicine that causes dilation of blood vessels is known as vasodilators. Generally vasodilators are given to decrease the blood pressure. It openly affects the connection between mean arterial pressure, cardiac output and total peripheral resistance.Leafy greens like spinach and collard greens are high in nitrates, which your body converts into nitric oxide, a potent vasodilator. Eating nitrate-rich foods may help improve circulation by dilating blood vessels, allowing your blood to flow more easily.
The primary function of vasodilation is to increase blood flow in the body to tissues that need it most. This is often in response to a localized need for oxygen but can occur when the tissue in question is not receiving enough glucose, lipids, or other nutrients. Localized tissues have multiple ways to increase blood flow, including releasing vasodilators, primarily adenosine, into the local interstitial fluid, which diffuses to capillary beds, provoking local vasodilation.Some physiologists have suggested that it is the lack of oxygen itself that causes capillary beds to vasodilate by the smooth muscle hypoxia of the vessels in the region. This latter hypothesis is posited due to the presence of precapillary sphincters in capillary beds. These approaches to the mechanism of vasodilation are not mutually exclusive.