Forearm reactive hyperaemia is not mediated by nitric oxide in healthy volunteers |
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| Authors: | Nugent,McGurk,McAuley,Maguire,Silke,& Johnston |
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| Affiliation: | Department of Therapeutics and Pharmacology, The Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland. |
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| Abstract: | AIMS: To determine the role of nitric oxide (NO) in forearm reactive hyperaemia in healthy human subjects. METHODS: Ten healthy subjects aged 19-34 years underwent brachial artery cannulation. Forearm circulatory arrest was achieved by means of an upper arm cuff inflated to 200 mmHg for 5 min. The blood flow responses during reactive hyperaemia were measured using venous occlusion plethysmography following a 10 min intra-arterial infusion of 8 micromol min-1 N-monomethyl L-arginine (L-NMMA) and following matching placebo administered in random order. Results were analysed by repeated measures anova and t-tests. RESULTS: L-NMMA resulted in a significant reduction of basal forearm blood flow indicating inhibition of basal NO release (P=0.005). There was no significant difference between the blood flow responses during reactive hyperaemia following L-NMMA and placebo (P=0.97). CONCLUSIONS: Nitric oxide production does not make a significant contribution to the vasodilatation associated with reactive hyperaemia in the human forearm. |
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| Keywords: | forearm blood flow nitric oxide reactive hyperaemia |
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