Chemical drink breathes life into damaged hearts After drinking a chemical dissolved in water, mice with damaged hearts turn from couch potatoes into treadmill tearaways, researchers say. The finding raises hopes that the same substance can invigorate patients weakened from heart attacks by increasing the supply of oxygen to damaged cardiac muscle.
Designed to make haemoglobin release more of its oxygen than normal, the drug, myo-inositol trispyrophosphate (ITPP) boosted exercise levels in the ailing mice by 35% when given dissolved in water. When given by injection into the abdomen, exercise levels rose a massive 60%.
"ITPP doesn't deliver oxygen itself, but makes haemoglobin able to release a larger amount of oxygen to tissues," explains Jean-Marie Lehn of the University of Strasbourg in France.
Normally, he says, haemoglobin releases only 25% of its oxygen cargo during one circuit of the body. But when ITPP binds to haemoglobin, it releases 35% more than usual, boosting supplies of oxygen to tissues without people having to inhale any extra air.
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