Hydrogen-Rich Saline Protects Heart from Damage During Heart Attack
- Authors
- Li Yao, Hongguang Chen, Qinghua Wu, Keliang Xie
- Journal
- International Journal of Molecular Medicine
- Year
- 2019
- DOI
- 10.3892/ijmm.2019.4264
- Study Type
- Rat
- Outcome
- Positive
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- Country
- China
- Health Condition
- Myocardial Infarction
- Body System
- Cardiovascular
TL;DR
Hydrogen-rich saline treatment can reduce heart damage and improve heart function after a heart attack by decreasing inflammation and cell death.
Key Finding
Hydrogen-rich saline reduced heart damage and improved cardiac function in rats with ischemia/reperfusion injury, partly by activating a cellular cleanup mechanism that removes damaged components.
Summary
Researchers tested whether hydrogen-rich saline could protect heart tissue from damage caused by temporarily cutting off blood flow and then restoring it (a condition called ischemia/reperfusion injury). Using rats and heart cells in the lab, they found that hydrogen-rich saline reduced heart damage, improved heart function, and decreased harmful inflammation and cell death. The protective effect appeared to work through a cellular cleanup process called autophagy.
Practical Takeaway
This is an early-stage animal study showing that hydrogen-rich saline may have protective effects on heart tissue during ischemic injury. However, these results are from rats and laboratory cells, not humans, so it's unclear whether similar benefits would occur in people. More research, including human trials, would be needed before hydrogen water could be considered a treatment for heart disease.
Abstract
Ischemia/reperfusion (I/R)‑induced inflammatory reaction is one of the most important elements in myocardial I/R injury. In addition, autophagy serves an important role in normal cardiac homeostasis, and obstructions to the autophagy process lead to severe consequences for the heart. Hydrogen exerts an effective therapeutic role in numerous diseases associated with I/R injury via its anti‑inflammation, anti‑apoptosis and anti‑oxidative properties. Therefore, the present study investigated the effect of hydrogen on the myocardial inflammation response and apoptosis in myocardial ischemic/reperfusion (MI/R) injury, and further explored the mechanism of PTEN‑induced kinase 1 (PINK1)/Parkin‑induced mitophagy in the protection of hydrogen on MI/R injury. MI/R injury was performed by surgical ligation of the left coronary artery in vivo and H9C2 cell injury was performed by hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) in vitro. Hydrogen‑rich saline was administered twice through intraperitoneal injection at a daily dose of 10 ml/kg following the operation in the in vivo model, and hydrogen‑rich medium culture was used for cells instead of normal medium in vitro. The infarction size of hearts, the levels of creatinine kinase‑muscle/brain (CK‑MB) and cardiac troponin I (cTnI), cardiac function, cell viability and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release, levels of cytokines, apoptosis and the expression of autophagy‑associated proteins were detected in the different treatment groups in vivo and in vitro. The results demonstrated that treatment with hydrogen improved the myocardial infarction size of hearts, cardiac function, apoptosis and cytokine release following MI/R in rats. In vitro, hydrogen improved cell viability and LDH release following hypoxia/reoxygenation in myocardial cells. In addition, it was demonstrated that hydrogen exerted an anti‑inflammatory and anti‑apoptotic effect in myocardial cells induced by H/R via PINK1/Parkin mediated autophagy. These results suggested that hydrogen‑rich saline alleviated the inflammation response and apoptosis induced by MI/R or H/R in vivo or in vitro, and that hydrogen‑rich saline contributed to the increased expression of proteins associated with autophagy. In summary, the present study indicated that treatment with hydrogen‑rich saline improved the inflammatory response and apoptosis in MI/R via PINK1/Parkin‑mediated mitophagy.