10.06.16

A simple blood pressure can protect the heart and the brain in connection with thrombosis.

Hans Erik Bøtker, Professor, Consultant, DMSc, at Department of Cardiology, Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark has together with a Danish research consortium received 15 million DKK from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Interdesciplinary Synergy Programme.

The purpose of the research project, called ConBis, is to study the mechanisms of the so-called remote conditioning, where brief intermittent stops of blood flow by inflating a cuff on the patients arm can protect the heart and brain during a prolonged period of lack of oxygen in connection with thrombosis.

A similar kind of protection can be obtained by hard physical exercise and by a newly discovered method the so-called blood flow restricted exercise, which does not lead to lack of oxygen supply to the arm.

The mechanisms behind the protective effect are unknown and it is not clear if the mechanisms are the same in the two different methods. The perspective is to investigate the possibility of expanding the application of the two methods to clarify the effect of daily remote conditioning in chronic conditions such as heart failure and inflammatory bowel disease.

Such an investigation requires an interdisciplinary approach with experts within heart disease, neurologicalrve disease, intestinal disease, sport physiology and chemistry to identify the unknown circulating signaling molecules and other chemical substances, including microvesicles that may provide the protective effect.

The research consortium consists in addition to Hans Erik Bøtker of Jørgen Kjems, Professor at iNANO, Kristian Vissing, Associate professor, Department of Public Health, Section for Sport Science, Kim Ryun Drasbek, Associate professor, CFIN – all at Aarhus University and Aleksander Krag, Professor, Consultant, PhD, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Odense University Hospital.

With the Interdisciplinary Synergy Programme the Novo Nordisk Foundation wishes specifically to support research projects across professional, institutional and national borders. The project brings researchers from different scientific fields together to solve biomedical and biotechnological challenges in health and disease.