No abstract

Green tea extract appears to block the development of cardiac hypertrophy in experimental renal failure. Some of this effect may be related to the attenuation of hypertension, but a direct effect on cardiac myocyte ROS production and growth was also identified. Clinical studies of green tea extract in chronic renal failure patients may be warranted.

These data show that one or more substances are present in uremic sera that acutely cause increased force of contraction and impaired recovery of cardiac myocyte calcium concentration as well as impaired relaxation. As these effects are similar to that seen with ouabain and can be prevented by co-incubation with an antibody fragment to digitalis, which also attenuates the sodium pump inhibitory effect, we suggest that this (these) substance(s) circulating in uremic sera and inhibiting the sodium pump also causes the acute diastolic dysfunction seen in our system.