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Volume 9 Supplement 2

15th Scientific Symposium of the Austrian Pharmacological Society (APHAR)

Cardioprotective effects of bilberry extract on ischemia-reperfusion-induced injury in isolated rat heart

BMC Pharmacology volume 9, Article number: A55 (2009) Cite this article

Background

Bilberries (Vaccinium myrtillus L.) are recognized as a good source of flavonoids, especially anthocyanins, which have strong antioxidative activity. Therefore, they may have a strong potential as cardioprotective agents in ischemic-reperfusion injury.

Methods

Anthocyanins from the prepared bilberry extract were analyzed using the HPLC-DAD system and were expressed as a standard of cyanidine-3-glucoside (mg/L). Experiments were carried out on the isolated hearts from Wistar rats of both sexes according to the Langendorff method. Post-ischemic myocardial injuries during reperfusion were determined by changes in coronary flow rate, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release rate, electrocardiogram analysis, incidence and duration of arrhythmias.

Results

Bilberry extract (0.01-5 mg/L) increased coronary flow and decreased LDH release rate during reperfusion. Coronary flow was increased up to 2.5-fold (p < 0.001) at 0.1 mg/L and up to 2.0-fold (p < 0.01) at 1 mg/L compared to the control values. The LDH release rates were decreased 3.7-fold (p < 0.001) at 0.1 mg/L and 6.7-fold (p < 0.001) at 1 mg/L compared to the control. Furthermore, the application of bilberry extract was also effective in the prevention of arrhythmias. The duration of arrhythmias was maximally shortened at 0.1 mg/L to 3.2 ± 0.2% (p < 0.001) and at 1 mg/L group to 4.4 ± 0.3% (p < 0.001) of the control value from the untreated group. However, the bilberry extract had no significant effect on heart rate and on left ventricular developed pressure.

Conclusion

Our results show that bilberry extract has anti-ischemic and anti-arrhythmic activity on ischemia-reperfusion-induced injury in isolated rat hearts.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Pharmacology and Experimental Toxicology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Lovro Žiberna, Mojca Lunder & Gorazd Drevenšek

  2. Department of Food Science and Technology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Špela Može

  3. Department of Oenology, Agricultural Institute of Slovenia, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Andreja Vanzo

Authors
  1. Lovro Žiberna
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  2. Mojca Lunder
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  3. Špela Može
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  4. Andreja Vanzo
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  5. Gorazd Drevenšek
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lovro Žiberna.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Žiberna, L., Lunder, M., Može, Š. et al. Cardioprotective effects of bilberry extract on ischemia-reperfusion-induced injury in isolated rat heart. BMC Pharmacol 9 (Suppl 2), A55 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2210-9-S2-A55

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2210-9-S2-A55

Keywords

BMC Pharmacology

ISSN: 1471-2210