Evaluating the effect of combination therapy with ubiquinol and nicotinamide on myocardial arrhythmias, nitric oxide level and oxidative stress indices in myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury of aged rats

Abstract

Myocardial infarction is one of the most important causes of death in the world. Establishing re-perfusion in the heart that has suffered ischemia is one of the treatment methods. But reperfusion causes tissue damage in addition to treatment. Studies so far have not been able to introduce a standard treatment protocol for the treatment of myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injuries for patients with myocardial infarction, especially the elderly. Objective: This study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effect of combined treatment with ubiquinol and nicotinamide on cardiac arrhythmias, nitric oxide levels and oxidative stress indices in ischemia-reperfusion of myocardium in old rats. Methods and Materials: In this study, 30 old Wistar male rats between the ages of 22 and 24 months and weighing 250-300 grams were selected from the animal center of the university. Then the hearts were randomly divided into 5 groups of 6. 1) Control group (sham) that did not experience any ischemia-reperfusion (I/R). 2) Control group: I/R that experienced ischemia and then reperfusion. 3) Nicotinamide + I/R (nico) group: in which aged rats were pretreated with nicotinamide mononucleotide for 21 consecutive days and then their hearts were subjected to ischemia and reperfusion. 4) Ubiquinol + I/R (ubiq) group: in which conditions were the same as the I/R group, except that immediately at the start of reperfusion, the hearts received ubiquinol. 5) The combination of group 3 and 4 (nico+ubiq): in which aged rats were pretreated with nicotinamide mononucleotide for 21 consecutive days, and then their hearts were subjected to I/R injury and at the time of reestablishing the initial blood flow they received ubiquinol. Then, the rate of arrhythmia, lactate dehydrogenase, nitric oxide, malondialdehyde, glutathione peroxidase, catalase, and superoxide dismutase activity in different study groups were measured and statistically analyzed. Results: Our study showed that using combined treatment of ubiquinol and nicotinamide at the same time reduces arrhythmia, decreases lactate dehydrogenase and malondialdehyde and increases catalase, glutathione peroxidase, nitric oxide metabolites and superoxide dismutase following myocardial ischemia reperfusion injury in rats.