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A drug long used to treat gout
also improves blood vessel function in people with heart failure. The
drug, known as allopurinol, is often used to treat gout, a painful form
of arthritis caused by abnormally high levels of uric acid in the blood.
The drug blocks an enzyme called xanthine oxidase (XO) that is involved
in producing uric acid.
XO is also thought to play
a role in oxidative stress, or the accumulation of cell-damaging substances
called "free radicals." Oxidative stress also contributes to
chronic heart failure, so researchers at Ninewells Hospital and Medical
School in Dundee, Scotland, set out to see whether blocking XO with allopurinol
might benefit people with heart failure.
In chronic heart failure, the
heart becomes enlarged and loses its ability to pump blood efficiently.
Symptoms include breathlessness, swelling of the feet due to fluid accumulation
and fatigue.
Heart
2002 March;87(3):229-34
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