The influence of old age on cardioprotective efficiency of pharmacological postconditioning using lactic acid in ischemia-reperfusion of the myocardium in experiment

Not only the prevalence, but also the death rate from the coronary heart disease, including myocardial infarction, is higher in older people than among young people. A demographic shift towards an aging population will lead to a further increase in the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases among the elderly population. Therefore, one of the urgent aims of modern experimental and clinical medicine is to develop methods aimed at limiting reversible and irreversible damage to the myocardium, including in elderly patients. There are a lot of the data supporting the cardioprotective efficiency of such phenomena as ischemic and pharmacological pre- and postconditioning that reduce ischemic and reperfusion damage in young hearts. However, the information on the effectiveness of these phenomena in experiments on old animals is very scarce, contradictory, and not fully understood. The aim of the study was to experimentally evaluate the influence of old age on the reproducibility of the cardioprotective efficiency of pharmacological postconditioning using lactic acid in ischemia-reperfusion of the myocardium. In the course of the study, it was found that neutral lactate, after being administered into the blood flow of animals at a dose of 10 mg/kg 25 minutes after the onset of reperfusion, leads to a decrease in the infarct size of the left ventricle of the myocardium in old rats. Pharmacological postconditioning using lactate is not effective in reducing the duration of cardiac arrhythmias in ischemia-reperfusion of the myocardium in old rats; however, there is a tendency to reduce the incidence of reperfusion arrhythmias and the total duration of cardiac arrhythmias. The obtained data suggest that the presence of such a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases as old age is not a criterion to exclude the use of pharmacological postconditioning with lactate as a way to reduce ischemia and reperfusion injury of myocardium.