Reactive Oxygen Species Are Involved in Myocardial Remote Ischemic Preconditioning

Ischemic heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. There has been a continued search for better therapeutic strategies that would reduce myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury. Remote ischemic preconditioning (rIPC) was first introduced in 1993 by Przyklenk et al who reported that brief regional occlusion-reperfusion episodes in one vascular bed of the heart render protection to remote myocardial tissue. Subsequently, different studies have showed that rIPC applied to the kidney, liver, mesentery, and skeletal muscle, have all exhibited cardioprotective effects. The main purpose of this chapter is to summarize the advances in understanding the molecular mechanisms of rIPC, including those related to oxidative stress. Detailed understanding of the pathways involved in cardioprotection induced by rIPC is expected to lead to the development of new drugs to reduce the consequences of prolonged ischemia.