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Improving Strength, Power, Muscle Aerobic Capacity, and Glucose Tolerance through Short-term Progressive Strength Training Among Elderly People
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Improving Strength, Power, Muscle Aerobic Capacity, and Glucose Tolerance through Short-term Progressive Strength Training Among Elderly People

Published on: July 5, 2017

[Metabolism and the hypertrophied heart of the elderly]

H Rupp1, T P Rupp, B Maisch

  • 1Molekular-kardiologisches Labor, Klinik für Innere Medizin und Kardiologie, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Marburg. Rupp@staff.uni-marburg.de

Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift (1946)
|March 19, 2005
PubMed

Insights

High blood pressure in elderly patients can harm heart cells. Drugs targeting PPARalpha may normalize heart function without increasing fatty acid oxidation, offering a potential therapeutic strategy for heart failure.

Area of Science:

  • Cardiology
  • Molecular Biology
  • Pharmacology

Background:

  • Hypertension in elderly patients can cause cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and gene expression defects.
  • Reduced expression of PPARalpha impairs fatty acid oxidation, potentially compensated by glucose oxidation.
  • PPARalpha influences anti-inflammatory mechanisms, suggesting broader therapeutic implications.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if drugs can normalize reduced PPARalpha effects without increasing fatty acid oxidation.
  • To explore therapeutic strategies for pressure-overloaded hypertrophied cardiomyocytes in elderly patients.

Main Methods:

  • Characterization of etomoxir as a lead compound: a carnitine palmitoyltransferase-1 inhibitor.
  • Evaluation of etomoxir's effects in animal models of heart failure.

Main Results:

  • Etomoxir increased sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+) pump expression and activity.
  • Observed faster relaxation and slowed progression of heart failure in animal experiments.
  • Demonstrated potential for PPARalpha activation without exacerbating fatty acid oxidation.

Conclusions:

  • Targeting impaired function of hypertrophied cardiomyocytes in elderly patients is a potential therapeutic approach.
  • Early intervention before heart failure progression, neuroendocrine activation, and symptoms is advisable.
  • Etomoxir shows promise as a therapeutic agent for managing hypertension-induced cardiac dysfunction.

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