We present a one-dimensional model describing the blood flow through a moderately curved and elastic blood vessel. We use an existing two dimensional model of the vessel wall along with Navier−Stokes equations to model the flow through the channel while taking factors, namely, surrounding muscle tissue and presence of external forces other than gravity into account. Our model is obtained via a dimension reduction procedure based on the assumption of thinness of the vessel relative to its length. Results of numerical simulations are presented to highlight the influence of different factors on the blood flow.