Hypertensive kidney disease this situation, the kidney supplied blood by the narrowed renal artery suffers from inadequate blood flow, which in turn causes the size of the kidneys to decrease. Other consequences include arterial stiffening, which involves a gradual breakdown of elastic fibers and intima (the innermost layer of a blood vessel) thickening. An alternative mechanism of hypertensive nephropathy is prolonged glomerular hypertension and hence glomerular hyperfiltration. These can occur simultaneously but not necessarily. The idea is that hypertension results in sclerosis of the glomeruli which ultimately means reduced kidney function. As a compensatory mechanism, the unaffected nephrons (specifically, the preglomerular arterioles) vasodilate
Bronchial artery branches of the pulmonary arteries, and together, they supply the visceral pleura of the lung in the process. Note that much of the oxygenated blood supplied by the bronchial arteries is returned via the pulmonary veins rather than the bronchial veins. As a consequence, blood returning to the left heart is slightly less oxygenated than blood found at the level of the pulmonary capillary beds. Each bronchial artery also has a branch that supplies the esophagus. It is easy to confuse the bronchial arteries with the pulmonary arteries, because they both supply the lungs with blood, but there are important