Endothelial function impairment in chronic venous insufficiency: effect of some cardiovascular protectant agents.

In segments of human varicose veins, endothelial function was assessed by measuring relaxation induced by acetylcholine in noradrenaline-precontracted preparations. In addition, concentration-response curves to acetylcholine were obtained before and after incubation with the arterial endothelium protectant agents captopril, losartan, troglitazone, pravastatin, or simvastatin. The antivaricose agent escin was also tested.

Medicalization of pharmacology teaching: an urgent need in the medical curriculum.

Information overload, proliferation of new drugs and curricular reforms have been recognized as three of the major factors contributing to the insufficient pharmacological education of medical students. To remedy this situation, it has been recommended that a curriculum more selective in knowledge content coupled with a restricted list of drugs be developed. Based on our own teaching experience, common educational objectives, competencies to be achieved, profiles of morbidity and mortality of the Mexican population, and knowledge of the literature, we have identified what should constitute the core content of pharmacology courses in medical schools.

[The teaching of pharmacology in medical schools: current status and future perspectives].

Pharmacology is a core course in all medical school curricula. In most medical schools, pharmacology is taught during the second year and teaching covers both basic aspects and useful drugs for the treatment of human diseases. It is assumed that relevant pharmacologic knowledge is revisited during the clinical clerkships and that students are adequately trained to prescribe drugs upon graduation.

Endothelium protectant and contractile effects of the antivaricose principle escin in rat aorta.

The triterpene saponin escin is the active component of the extract of seeds of Aesculus hippocastanum used in the treatment of chronic venous insufficiency. Escin is also used experimentally to increase membrane permeability in isolated cells. Since endothelial dysfunction is postulated to be involved in venous insufficiency, the possible endothelium-protectant effect of escin was explored in rat aortic rings, a model widely used to study such effects with cardiovascular agents.

Hypotensive effect of hydroxylamine, an endogenous nitric oxide donor and SSAO inhibitor.

The endogenous compound hydroxylamine relaxes vascular smooth muscle in vitro, apparently through conversion to the vasodilator factor nitric oxide, but its effect on blood pressure has not been characterized. We found that in the anesthetized rat the amine elicits dose-related hypotension when administered by continuous iv infusion. In experiments designed to explore the mechanism of this effect, hydroxylamine was compared with the nitric oxide donor nitroprusside and the direct-acting vasodilator hydralazine, using pretreatments known to modify diverse mechanisms of vasodilation.

Antivasoconstrictor effect of the neuroprotective agent dexrazoxane in rat aorta.

Dexrazoxane is used clinically to reduce the cardiotoxicity of anthracycline cancer chemotherapeutic agents, acting by an iron-chelating antioxidant mechanism. In a study designed to explore the possible mechanism of the recently described neuroprotective effect of the drug in cerebral ischemia, its influence on vascular reactivity was determined in rat aortic rings. Dexrazoxane was found to be devoid of direct contractile or relaxant activity and to have no influence on responses to acetylcholine or histamine (relaxation), or to angiotensin or serotonin (contraction).

Hydralazine decreases sodium nitroprusside-induced rat aortic ring relaxation and increased cGMP production by rat aortic myocytes.

Association of hydralazine with nitrova-sodilators has long been known to be beneficial in the vasodilator treatment of heart failure. We previously found that hydralazine appeared to reduce the increase in cGMP induced by sodium nitroprusside in cultured rat aortic myocytes. In order to further explore this seemingly paradoxical interaction, we extended our initial observations in rat aortic myocytes and also determined the influence of hydralazine on sodium nitroprusside-induced relaxation of rat aortic rings.

Metamizol acts as an ATP sensitive potassium channel opener to inhibit the contracting response induced by angiotensin II but not to norepinephrine in rat thoracic aorta smooth muscle.

Clinically metamizol (MZ) has been related to alteration on haemodynamic parameters and modifications on blood pressure in humans when administered intravenously. These effects have been observed at MZ therapeutic doses. Experimentally, MZ is able to induce relaxation on several types of vascular smooth muscles and modulates the contraction induced by phenylephrine.

Semicarbazide-sensitive amine oxidase: role in the vasculature and vasodilation after in situ inhibition.

1. The characteristics of semicarbazide-sensitive amine oxidase (SSAO) are reviewed and the unknown physiological or pathological role of this enzyme emphasized. 2.

Reflex bradycardia induced by hydralazine in sino-aortic deafferented conscious rats.

1. It is generally recognized that the vasodilator hydralazine produces hypotension accompanied by baroreflex-mediated tachycardia. In some experimental conditions, however, the accompanying heart rate change is bradycardia, a paradoxical response which has not been satisfactorily explained.

Semicarbazide-sensitive amine oxidase substrates potentiate hydralazine hypotension: possible role of hydrogen peroxide.

The relation between inhibition of semicarbazide-sensitive amine oxidase (SSAO) and vasodilation by hydralazine (HYD) was evaluated in chloralose/urethane-anesthetized rats pretreated with various substrates of the enzyme and subsequently administered a threshold hypotensive dose of the vasodilator. The SSAO substrates benzylamine, phenethylamine, and methylamine potentiate the hypotensive response to HYD. Methylamine, which was studied in greater detail because of its status as a possible endogenous SSAO substrate, does not influence the response to the reference vasodilator pinacidil; it does enhance HYD relaxation in aortic rings obtained from pretreated rats.

Effects of hydrazine derivatives on vascular smooth muscle contractility, blood pressure and cGMP production in rats: comparison with hydralazine.

Hydralazine is a hydrazine derivative used clinically as a vasodilator and antihypertensive agent. Despite numerous studies with the drug, its mechanism of action has remained unknown; guanylate cyclase activation and release of endothelial relaxing factors are thought to be involved in its vasodilator effect. Other hydrazine derivatives are known to stimulate guanylate cyclase and could therefore share the vasodilator activity of hydralazine, although such possibility has not been assessed systematically.

Evaluating knowledge retention of third-year medical students taught with an innovative pharmacology program.

Purpose: To explore the degree of retention of pharmacologic knowledge of third-year medical students taught in a new pharmacology teaching program.

Method: In 1997, the authors administered a retention test consisting of 100 multiple-choice questions, each with only one correct answer, to 457 third-year medical students at the National University of Mexico. Students were not told in advance about this diagnostic evaluation, which was given eight months after they completed the second-year pharmacology course.

Enhancement of hydralazine hypotension by low doses of isoniazid. Possible role of semicarbazide-sensitive amine oxidase inhibition.

The influence of pretreatment with 1 through 300 mg/kg ip of isoniazid (ISO) on blood pressure and heart rate responses to 0.1 mg/kg iv of hydralazine (HYD) was assessed in rats anesthetized with chloralose--urethane. HYD hypotension was significantly enhanced by ISO at doses between 3 and 300 mg/kg ip.

Influence of endothelium in dose-dependent inhibition and potentiation by isoniazid of isosorbide dinitrate relaxation of rat aorta.

The influence of in vivo administration of isoniazid on the relaxant effect of isosorbide dinitrate was determined by pretreating rats with various doses of isoniazid and obtaining concentration-response curves to isosorbide dinitrate in aortic rings from these animals. In rings with endothelium, isoniazid potentiated responses to isosorbide dinitrate at doses of 10, 30, and 100 mg/kg; 3 and 300 mg/kg were without effect. In endothelium-denuded preparations, potentiation was present only at 10 mg/kg; 3 and 300 mg/kg inhibited relaxation.

Pharmacology of Casimiroa edulis IV. Hypotensive effects of compounds isolated from methanolic extracts in rats and guinea pigs.

Bioassay-directed fractionation of the methanolic extract of seeds of Casimiroa edulis led to the isolation of seven constituents with cardiovascular activity, namely the new compound synephrine acetonide and the known compounds N-monomethylhistamine, N,N-dimethylhistamine, proline, N-methylproline, gamma-aminobutyric acid and casimiroedine. In anesthetized rats, both histamine derivatives produced transient hypotension mediated via H1-histaminergic receptors and in the case of N,N-dimethylhistamine, via nitric oxide release. Synephrine acetonide produced transient hypertension and tachycardia, mediated via alpha- and alpha- and beta-adrenergic receptores, respectively.

Enhanced bradycardia induced by beta-adrenoceptor antagonists in rats pretreated with isoniazid.

High doses of isoniazid increase hypotension induced by vasodilators and change the accompanying reflex tachycardia to bradycardia, an interaction attributed to decreased synthesis of brain gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). In the present study, the possible enhancement by isoniazid of bradycardia induced by beta-adrenoceptor antagonists was determined in rats anaesthetised with chloralose-urethane. Isoniazid significantly increased bradycardia after propranolol, pindolol, labetalol and atenolol, as well as after clonidine, but not after hexamethonium or carbachol.

Potentiation by isoniazid of relaxation induced by nitrovasodilators in rat aorta.

The influence of isoniazid (ISO) preincubation on the relaxant effects of a group of nitrovasodilators was examined in norepinephrine-contracted rat aortic rings with and without endothelium. ISO displaced to the left the dose-response curves to all nitrovasodilators and increased the negative logarithm of their median effective concentration (EC50) values. Potentiation was minimal with sodium nitrite and increased progressively with sodium nitroprusside, nitroglycerin (NTG), and isosorbide dinitrate.

Interaction between isoniazid and diverse vasodilators: role of decreased cerebral GABA.

Objective: To determine if the interaction between isoniazid and hydralazine, consisting of increased hypotension accompanied by bradycardia, occurs with other vasodilators.

Methods: Blood pressure and heart rate responses to a number of vasodilators were determined in rats under chloralose-urethane, pretreated or not with 250 mg/kg of isoniazid. The influence of this dose of isoniazid on GABA levels in the hypothalamus and pons-medulla was assessed in other groups of rats.

Tachyphylaxis and sensitization to nicotine-induced tachycardiac and pressor effects after nicotine infusions.

This work examined the effects of nicotine on mean arterial pressure and heart rate in non-anesthetized spinal rats. Nicotine (200 mg/kg) was administered as a single bolus, as infusions lasting 7.5, 15 or 30 min, and as a post-infusion bolus.

Cardiovascular effects of (-)-11-OH-delta 8-tetrahydrocannabinol-dimethylheptyl in rats.

The effects of the stereochemically pure psychoactive cannabinoid (-)-11-OH-delta 8-tetrahydrocannabinol-dimethylheptyl (HU-210) on blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) were determined in rats. In pentobarbital-anesthetized animals, the compound produced dose-related, long-lasting hypotension and bradycardia at doses between 10 and 1,000 micrograms/kg. BP began to decrease immediately after drug administration, and in no case was an initial pressor response observed.