1. Anti-Hypotensive Treatment and Endothelin Blockade Synergistically Antagonize Exercise Fatigue in Rats under Simulated High Altitude
- Author
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Gert Blueschke, Bruce Klitzman, David Irwin, Gregory M. Palmer, Robert J. Noveck, Mark W. Dewhirst, Yulin Zhao, Thies Schroeder, Karyn L. Hamilton, Alina Boico, Daniel R. Radiloff, Claude A. Piantadosi, and Andrew N. Fontanella
- Subjects
Critical Care and Emergency Medicine ,Pulmonology ,Physiology ,Acclimatization ,Respiratory System ,lcsh:Medicine ,Altitude Sickness ,Pharmacology ,Cardiovascular Physiology ,Drug Discovery ,Medicine and Health Sciences ,Drug Interactions ,Sympathomimetics ,lcsh:Science ,Fatigue ,Altitude sickness ,Ephedrine ,Mammals ,Multidisciplinary ,Phenylpropionates ,Altitude ,Drug Synergism ,Hematology ,Animal Models ,Cell Hypoxia ,Pyridazines ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Vertebrates ,Blood Circulation ,Drug Therapy, Combination ,Anatomy ,medicine.symptom ,Endothelin receptor ,Perfusion ,Injections, Intraperitoneal ,Research Article ,medicine.drug ,Drug Research and Development ,Ambrisentan ,Endothelin A Receptor Antagonists ,Cardiology ,Environmental and Occupational Lung Diseases ,Research and Analysis Methods ,Rodents ,Cardiovascular Pharmacology ,Model Organisms ,Heart rate ,medicine ,Animals ,Respiratory Physiology ,Sports and Exercise Medicine ,Dose-Response Relationship, Drug ,business.industry ,Acute Cardiovascular Problems ,lcsh:R ,Organisms ,Hemodynamics ,Biology and Life Sciences ,Skeletal muscle ,Hypoxia (medical) ,medicine.disease ,Rats ,Disease Models, Animal ,Blood pressure ,Methylphenidate ,Cardiovascular Anatomy ,lcsh:Q ,Clinical Medicine ,business - Abstract
Rapid ascent to high altitude causes illness and fatigue, and there is a demand for effective acute treatments to alleviate such effects. We hypothesized that increased oxygen delivery to the tissue using a combination of a hypertensive agent and an endothelin receptor A antagonist drugs would limit exercise-induced fatigue at simulated high altitude. Our data showed that the combination of 0.1 mg/kg ambrisentan with either 20 mg/kg ephedrine or 10 mg/kg methylphenidate significantly improved exercise duration in rats at simulated altitude of 4,267 m, whereas the individual compounds did not. In normoxic, anesthetized rats, ephedrine alone and in combination with ambrisentan increased heart rate, peripheral blood flow, carotid and pulmonary arterial pressures, breathing rate, and vastus lateralis muscle oxygenation, but under inspired hypoxia, only the combination treatment significantly enhanced muscle oxygenation. Our results suggest that sympathomimetic agents combined with endothelin-A receptor blockers offset altitude-induced fatigue in rats by synergistically increasing the delivery rate of oxygen to hypoxic muscle by concomitantly augmenting perfusion pressure and improving capillary conductance in the skeletal muscle. Our findings might therefore serve as a basis to develop an effective treatment to prevent high-altitude illness and fatigue in humans.
- Published
- 2014