Abstract
Heart-Protecting Musk Pill (HMP) is a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) that has been used for the prevention and treatment of coronary heart disease in clinic. The current study investigated the effect of HMP on the concentrations of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and observed the relationship between level changes of inflammatory cytokines and ventricular remodeling in rats with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Animal models of AMI were made by coronary artery ligation in Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. AMI rats showed increased levels of IL-6 and TNF-α. Treatment with HMP decreases IL-6 and TNF-α concentrations in rats with AMI. Histopathological and transmission electron microscopic findings were also essentially in agreement with biochemical findings. The results of our study revealed that inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α induce cardiac remodeling in rats after AMI; HMP improves cardiac function and ameliorates ventricular remodeling by downregulating the expression of IL-6 and TNF-α and further suppressing the ultrastructural changes of myocardial cells.
Highlights
Heart-Protecting Musk Pill (HMP), a multiherbal medicine developed according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) theory, is widely adopted in clinical practice to treat coronary heart disease
The key findings of our study were as follows: (1) HMP improved hemodynamic parameters; (2) HMP reduced myocardial fibrosis; (3) HMP exerted anti-inflammation effects by decreasing IL-6 and TNF-α expression; (4) HMP
The results demonstrated that infarction area hypertrophy obviously increased ventricular cavity and decreased cardiac function that occurred after acute myocardial infarction (AMI)
Summary
Heart-Protecting Musk Pill (HMP), a multiherbal medicine developed according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) theory, is widely adopted in clinical practice to treat coronary heart disease. Secretio Bufonis induces resuscitation and relieves pain, while Bezoar refreshes heart and Cinnamon invigorates warmly heart Yang [2,3,4,5]. The synergistic actions of all these drugs have the effect of warming up the heart Yang, activating blood circulation, eliminating phlegm, relieving pain, benefiting cardiac Qi, and protecting heart. By numerous animal experiments and clinical studies, it is proved that HMP is capable of dilating coronary artery, reducing the myocardial infarcted size, preventing ventricular reconstitution, inhibiting the inflammation of blood-vessel wall, and stabilizing atherosclerosis plaques [6, 7]. Pathologic ventricular remodeling following AMI mainly refers to the process of changes in size, shape, structure, and function of heart, including ventricular dilatation in infarcted zones and deterioration in cardiac function resulting from myocardial necrosis, myocardial fibrosis, and expansion of ventricular wall. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine aimed at exploring the possible mechanism of HMP on prevention of AMI induced ventricular remodeling by observing the correlation of cardiac remodeling with IL-6 and TNF-α expression as well as the intervention effect of HMP on IL-6 and TNF-α
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