Long-term prehypertension treatment with losartan effectively prevents brain damage and stroke in stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats.

Long-term prehypertension treatment with losartan effectively prevents brain damage and stroke in stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats. Int J Mol Med. 2013 Dec 10; Authors: He DH, Zhang LM, Lin LM, Ning RB, Wang HJ, Xu CS, Lin JX Abstract Prehypertension has been associated with adverse cerebrovascular events and brain damage. The aims of this study were to investigate ⅰ) whether short‑ and long-term treatments with losartan or amlodipine for prehypertension were able to prevent blood pressure (BP)-linked brain damage, and ⅱ) whether there is a difference in the effectiveness of treatment with losartan and amlodipine in protecting BP-linked brain damage. In the present study, prehypertensive treatment with losartan and amlodipine (6 and 16 weeks treatment with each drug) was performed on 4-week‑old stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRSP). The results showed that long-term (16 weeks) treatment with losartan is the most effective in lowering systolic blood pressure in the long term (up to 40 weeks follow-up). Additionally, compared with the amlodipine treatment groups, the short‑ and long-term losartan treatments protected SHRSP from stroke and improved their brains structurally and functionally more effectively, with the long-term treatment having more benefits. Mechanistically, the short‑ and long-term treatments with losartan reduced the activity of the local renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) in a t...
Source: International Journal of Molecular Medicine - Category: Molecular Biology Authors: Tags: Int J Mol Med Source Type: research