High cholesterol diet effects on ischemia–reperfusion injury of the heart

Abstract

Ischemic heart disease is the leading cause of morbi-mortality in developed countries. Both ischemia-reperfusion injury and mechanisms of cardioprotection have been studied for more than 50 years. It is known that the physiopathological mechanism of myocardial ischemia involves several factors that are closely related to its development, of which hypercholesterolemia is one of the main ones. Therefore, the objective of this review was to elucidate the effects of a high-cholesterol diet on normal ventricular function and ischemia-reperfusion injury associated phenomenon such as post-ischemic ventricular dysfunction (stunned myocardium). Although there exist many studies considering several aspects of this physiopathological entity, the majority were carried out on normal animals. Thus, experiments carried out on hypercholesterolemic models are controversial, in particular those evaluating different mechanisms of cardioprotection such as ischemic preconditioning and postconditioning, and cardioprotection granted by drugs such as statins, which apart from exerting a lipid-lowering effect, exert pleiotropic effects providing cardioprotection against ischemia-reperfusion injury. These controversial results concerning the mechanisms of cardioprotection vary according to quality, composition, and time of administration of the high-cholesterol diet, as well as the species used in each experiment. Thus, to compare the results it is necessary to take all of these variables into account, since they can change the obtained results.

Hypercholesterolemia downregulates autophagy in the rat heart

“…Hyperlipidemias have significant cardiac consequences, since they are among the major risk factors of ischemic heart diseases [1]. The role of atherosclerosis is well studied in these pathologies; however, myocardial effects of hyperlipidemias that do not result in atherosclerosis, such as isolated hypercholesterolemia, is less well understood.…”

Role of thioredoxin-1 in ischemic preconditioning, postconditioning and aged ischemic hearts

“…These findings were supported by Sun et al [58] in experiments on isolated cardiomyocytes subjected to hypoxia/reoxygenation. For several years, our laboratory has been studying the cardioprotection mechanisms against I/R injury [61][62][63][64][65][66]. In previous papers we showed that A1 adenosine receptors and K + ATP sensitive channels were involved in PostC cardioprotection mechanism [65].…”

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“…Serum lipids are related with the onset of several heart ailments. The cholesterol (CH), triglycerides (TG), low density lipoprotein (LDL) and high density lipoprotein (HDL) are more common in evaluating heart problems (Sultani et al, 2020): (D'Annunzio, Donato et al, 2012.…”