Healthy Food Cranberry Protects the Heart Against Cardiovascular Toxicity

By Kyle J. Norton


Cardiac toxicity is a condition in which the heart has been damage to some extents caused by harmful chemicals, including toxins induced by the treatment of chemotherapy, leading to reduced heart muscles function to pump blood and heart failure.

Long term intake of certain medication and people who are under treatment of chemotherapy have been found in most cases of cardiotoxicity.

 Dr. Polonsky TS, the lead scientist wrote, "Age and preexisting left ventricular dysfunction have been identified most consistently as being associated with the development of clinical heart failure or a worsening of left ventricular function with chemotherapy".

And, "Other cardiovascular conditions, including hypertension, diabetes, and coronary artery disease, are also associated with the risk of cardiotoxicity".

Additionally,  human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, genetic preposition, a malignant disease associated with the amyloid deposited on the heart or other organs, high blood pressure, untreated hyperthyroidism, and vitamin b2 deficiency are some of the most prevalent factors found in patients with cardiotoxicity.

Depending on the cells of the areas of the heart that have been damaged, cardiac toxicity includes
* Cardiomyopathy is a disorder caused a weaken or damage of heart muscle, affecting the heart rhythm or inducing the risk of heart failure.

* Myocarditis is a condition of inflammation of the heart, that can lead to changes in heart rhythm or heart failure.

* Pericarditis is a condition caused by the inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart, inducing chest pain or heart failure.

* Acute coronary syndromes that affect the blood flow due to blood vessel damage.

* Congestive heart failure is a result that affects the function of the heart in pumping blood throughout the body.

Most common symptoms of cardiotoxicity are associated with not enough blood circulation in the body such as tiredness and fatigue, a long-term (chronic) cough, shortness of breath, floating due to the enlarged heart muscle, abnormal heart or lung sounds and swelling in your hands, feet, or unusual weight gain.

Conventionally, treatment of cardiotoxicity is totally depending on the types of the disease including
Beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors induce (widen) the arterial dilation and improvement of the blood flow and diuretics.

Cranberry is an evergreen dwarf shrub, genus Vaccinium, belongings to the family Ericaceae, native to Northern America and Southern Asia. Because of its health benefits, cranberry has been cultivated in some parts of the world for commercial profit and used in traditional and herbal medicine to treat wounds, urinary disorders, diarrhea, diabetes, stomach ailments, and liver problems.

On finding a potential compound for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, researchers examined the protective effect of cranberry extract (CRAN) against DOX-induced cardiotoxicity in an animal model.

According to the results of rats were given CRAN orally (100mg/kg/day for 10 consecutive days) and DOX (15mg/kg; i.p.) for 7 days, CRAN protected the heart function against DOX-induced increased mortality and ECG changes.

The reduced levels of antioxidants enzymes and increased oxidative stress in the cardiac tissues induced by DOX such as glutathione (GSH) depletion and oxidized glutathione (GSSG), malondialdehyde (MDA), and protein carbonyls were significantly inhibited by the administration of CRAN.

Furthermore, the reduced cardiac activities of catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and glutathione reductase (GR) induced by DOX were also inhibited by CRAN.

Moreover, CRAN also improved the cardiac myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity against infection compared to untreated rats.

Most important, CRAN also normalized the levels of enzymes associated with cardio muscle damage and injury casued by DOX such as troponin I, creatine phosphokinase (CK), and creatine kinase-MB.

Based on the findings, researchers said, "CRAN alleviated histopathological changes in rats' hearts treated with DOX. In conclusion, CRAN protects against DOX-induced cardiotoxicity in rats".

Taken altogether, cranberry may be considered a remedy for the protection of cardiovascular toxicity, pending to the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) Cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) protects against doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity in rats by Elberry AA1, Abdel-Naim AB, Abdel-Sattar EA, Nagy AA, Mosli HA, Mohamadin AM, Ashour OM. (PubMed)
(2) Risk factors for chemotherapy-related cardiac toxicity by Polonsky TS1, DeCara JM. (PubMed)