Comparative study on early application of the recipe for activating blood circulation and the recipe for supplementing qi for inhibiting left ventricular remodeling and apoptosis in rats with heart failure
Abstract:Objective: To compare the characteristics of early application of the recipe for activating blood circulation and the recipe for supplementing qi for inhibiting left ventricular remodeling and apoptosis in rats with heart failure. Method: The left coronary artery occlusion was conducted to establish the rat model of heart failure after myocardial infarction. The model rats were randomly divided into 5 groups, including model group, activating blood circulation group(8 g·kg-1), supplementing qi group(8 g·kg-1), activating blood circulation plus supplementing qi group(16 g·kg-1), and captopril group(10.125 g·kg-1), and a sham operation group was set up as negative control group. The drugs were administrated on the second day after myocardial infarction with a therapeutic course of 4 weeks or 8 weeks. The heart function was detected by impedance method; Pathological staining and image analysis were used to determine the perimeter and the area of left ventricular cavity, and myocardial nuclei number and collagen content per unit area;Apoptosis percentage of the myocardial cell was detected by TUNEL and the content of Ang II in the cardiac muscle was measured by radioimmunoassay. Result: In comparison with the model group, the function of left ventricular contraction function improved, the area of left ventricular cavity diminished, and proliferation of collagen, content of Ang II and apoptosis percentage of the myocardial cell reduced in all of the treatment groups(P<0.05 or P<0.01). After treatment of 8 weeks, the activating blood circulation group was similar to the sham operation group in improvement of cardiac index, and decreases of the area of left ventricular cavity and the content of Ang II; Apoptosis percentage of the myocardial cell in the activating blood circulation group was significantly lower than that in the supplementing qi group. Conclusion: Both the recipes for activating blood circulation and for supplementing qi can inhibit left ventricular remodeling and myocardial apoptosis, and delay development of heart failure, with the best effect in the activating blood circulation group after treatment of 8 weeks.