The protective effects of acupoint gel embedding on rats with myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury

Publication date: Available online 5 September 2018Source: Life SciencesAuthor(s): Changchun Ji, Fan Song, Guoyou Huang, Siwang Wang, Han Liu, Shaobao Liu, Liping Huang, Shaoming Liu, Jingyu Zhao, Tian Jian Lu, Feng XuAbstractAimsPrevention and treatment of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury has for many years been a hot topic in treating ischemic heart disease. As one of the most well-known methods of complementary and alternative medicine, acupuncture has attracted increasing interest in preventing myocardial I/R injury due to its remarkable effectiveness and minimal side effect. However, traditional acupuncture approaches are limited by cumbersome execution, high labor costs and inevitable pain caused by frequent stimulation. Therefore, in this work, we aimed to develop a novel acupoint gel embedding approach and investigated its role in protecting against myocardial I/R injury in rats.Main methodsGels were embedded at bilateral Neiguan (PC6) points of rats and their protective effects against myocardial I/R injury evaluated in terms of changes in histomorphology, myocardial enzymology, antioxidant capacity, anti-inflammatory response, and anti-apoptosis of cells.Key findingsWe found that the approach of acupoint gel embedding could significantly reduce myocardial infarcted size, repair pathological changes, mitigate oxidative stress damage and inflammatory response, as well as inhibit apoptosis of cardiomyocytes. Such cardioprotective effects were found to be as...
Source: Life Sciences - Category: Biology Source Type: research