Heart
Attack recovery enhanced
by any alcoholic drinks, not just red wine
For years researchers have
tried to determine why the French have such a lower rate of cardiovascular
disease, given the amount of fat consumed in their diets. Red wine has
been identified as one of the suspects in maintaining a healthy heart, but
now a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher has found that alcohol,
in moderation, from any source not only maintains a healthy heart, but can
reduce the damage to affected tissue following a heart attack.
When a heart attack
occurs, blood flow is reduced to several areas of the body. When the blood
flow is restored, several processes take place in the body that actually
cause more harm to the damaged tissue. When the blood supply is
reestablished, the blood carries white blood cells to the areas damaged by
the reduction in blood delivery. Unfortunately, these blood cells act like
miniature hand grenades as they stick to the walls of the arteries and
release toxic chemicals into the damaged tissues, causing additional cell
death.
“Following a heart attack,
physicians try to establish reperfusion, or normalize the blood flow in
the body,” said Ron Korthuis, distinguished professor and chair of medical
pharmacology and physiology. “The damaged tissues begin releasing a
variety of molecules that attract the white blood cells to the damaged
areas. When the white blood cells arrive, they attach to the adhesion
molecules on the blood vessel walls and then start destroying the damaged
tissue. One type of adhesion molecule that is affected by the alcohol
ingestion is P-selectin”
P-selectins make the
artery walls sticky enough that the white blood cells will attach when
they are in the affected areas. Using an animal model, Korthuis found that
when alcohol was introduced to the system at a rate of one drink every 48
hours, the alcohol would trigger a chemical reaction in the body that
would make the artery walls slick and stop the white blood cells from
attaching to the damaged tissue. In subjects that were treated with the
alcohol, the tissue affected by the low blood flow was much healthier and
stronger than the untreated tissue. However, Korthuis warns that this is
not a license to drink.
“Every time you take a
drink of alcohol, you’re killing brain cells,” Korthuis said. “We’re
trying to identify these chemical reactions so that we can develop a drug
that would start this chain reaction, but not have the side effects of
alcohol. We’ve also found other natural compounds have similar effects
such as capsaicin, a compound in Tabasco sauce
that creates that hot sensation.”
Korthuis’ research will be
published this fall in Microcirculation. He also has been published
in the American Journal of Physiology and Free Radicals Biology and
Medicine on similar research studies.
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Heart
Attack recovery enhanced