Influence of Short and Long Hyperglycemia on Cardioprotection by Remote Ischemic Preconditioning—A Translational Approach

The adverse impact of common diseases like diabetes mellitus and acute hyperglycemia on morbidity and mortality from myocardial infarction (MI) has been well documented over the past years of research. In the clinical setting, the relationship between blood glucose and mortality appears linear, with amplifying risk associated with increasing blood glucose levels. Further, this seems to be independent of a diagnosis of diabetes. In the experimental setting, various comorbidities seem to impact ischemic and pharmacological conditioning strategies, protecting the heart against ischemia and reperfusion injury. In this translational experimental approach from bedside to bench, we set out to determine whether acute and/or prolonged hyperglycemia have an influence on the protective effect of transferred human RIPC-plasma and, therefore, might obstruct translation into the clinical setting. Control and RIPC plasma of young healthy men were transferred to isolated hearts of young male Wistar rats in vitro. Plasma was administered before global ischemia under either short hyperglycemic (HGs Con, HGs RIPC) conditions, prolonged hyperglycemia (HGl Con, HGl RIPC), or under normoglycemia (Con, RIPC). Infarct sizes were determined by TTC staining. Control hearts showed an infarct size of 55 ± 7%. Preconditioning with transferred RIPC plasma under normoglycemia significantly reduced infarct size to 25 ± 4% (p < 0.05 vs. Con). Under acute hyperglycemia, control hearts showed an infarct size of 63 ± 5%. Applying RIPC plasma under short hyperglycemic conditions led to a significant infarct size reduction of 41 ± 4% (p < 0.05 vs. HGs Con). However, the cardioprotective effect of RIPC plasma under normoglycemia was significantly stronger compared with acute hyperglycemic conditions (RIPC vs. HGs RIPC; p < 0.05). Prolonged hyperglycemia (HGl RIPC) completely abolished the cardioprotective effect of RIPC plasma (infarct size 60 ± 7%; p < 0.05 vs. HGl Con; HGl Con 59 ± 5%).