Ischemic preconditioning and morphine attenuate myocardial apoptosis and infarction after ischemia-reperfusion in rabbits: role of delta-opioid receptor.

We examined whether ischemic preconditioning (IPC) attenuates ischemia-reperfusion injury, in part, by decreasing apoptosis and whether the delta-opioid receptor (DOR) plays a pivotal role in the regulation of apoptosis. Rabbits were subjected to 30-min coronary artery occlusion (CAO) and 180 min of reperfusion. IPC was elicited with four cycles of 5-min ischemia and 10-min reperfusion before CAO.

Imbalance of sex hormone levels in men with coronary artery disease.

Objective: Sex hormones are thought to play a key role in atherogenesis, but the available evidence is inconclusive, partly because of a lack of accuracy in measurement. The aim of the study was to investigate the potential role of sex hormones in coronary atherosclerosis.

Methods: We prospectively applied a simple highly-sensitive method using solid-phase extraction followed by radioimmunoassay.

Pretreatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitor attenuates the reduction of apoptosis 24 h after ischemic preconditioning.

We investigated whether ischemic preconditioning (PC) attenuates ischemia/reperfusion-induced injury in part by decreasing apoptosis and whether tyrosine kinase (TK) can regulate the signaling pathway leading to apoptosis in delayed cardioprotection. Six groups of rabbits were studied in the early phase (EP) and in the delayed phase (DP): (1) sham-operated control animals were received vehicle only (Veh-sham); (2) rabbits that received I.V.

Transient glucose deprivation causes upregulation of heme oxygenase-1 and cyclooxygenase-2 expression in cardiac fibroblasts.

Transient glucose deprivation (TGD) has been shown to induce a resistance to a subsequent ischemia and reperfusion injury in the heart. Induction of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is known to mediate the powerful defensive adaptation of the heart against oxidative stress. In this study, we found that a 30-min incubation in the absence of glucose resulted in a rapid increased expression of COX-2 and HO-1 in cardiac fibroblasts as examined by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and western blot analysis.

Myocardial glucose metabolism assessed by positron emission tomography and the histopathologic findings of microvessels in syndrome X.

Background: Syndrome X has been recognized as a disease that is primarily reflected in the cardiac microvasculature. Myocardial metabolism in this condition has been studied, but not in relation to small vessel pathology.

Methods And Results: In order to examine the relationship between myocardial metabolism and small vessel pathology, 24 consecutive patients with syndrome X (7 men, 17 women; mean age 58 years) were evaluated by the thallium exercise stress test, positron emission tomography using F-18 fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG), and an endomyocardial biopsy.

Effect of pretreatment vitamin D levels on in vivo effects of atorvastatin on bone metabolism in patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia.

To find the clinical variables associated with atorvastatin's effects on bone metabolism markers, 35 patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia were treated with atorvastatin for 24 weeks, and the levels of bone formation markers (bone-specific alkaline phosphatase and osteocalcin) and resorption marker (urine collagen type-1 cross-linked N-telopeptide) were determined. Pretreatment vitamin D levels showed significant and positive associations with changes in 2 bone formation markers. The serial changes in 3 markers were favorable-increased bone formation markers and unchanged bone resorption marker-but the changes occurred only in patients with pretreatment vitamin D levels >50 pg/ml.

Coronary disease morphology and distribution determined by quantitative angiography and intravascular ultrasound--re-evaluation in a cooperative multicenter intravascular ultrasound study (COMIUS).

Although previous studies have demonstrated that even quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) can not provide accurate disease morphology, there has not been a systematic comparison of disease morphology determined by QCA and intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), particularly in Japanese patients. Therefore, the present study prospectively examined patients in a multicenter cooperative study. A total of 491 coronary sites from 562 patients (446 men, 116 women; mean age, 64+/-11 years) who underwent coronary interventions were enrolled.