Polyphenolic compounds from Cognac induce vasorelaxation in vitro and decrease post-ischaemic cardiac infarction after an oral administration.

The effects of Cognac polyphenolic compounds (CPC) on aorta and isolated heart, the consequences of oral administration on haemodynamic parameters, vascular reactivity and cardiac recovery after ischaemia were investigated. CPC induced an endothelium-dependent vasorelaxation on rat-isolated aorta. This effect was prevented by the nitric oxide (NO) synthase inhibitor, NG-nitro-L-arginine-methyl ester, but not by the cyclo-oxygenase inhibitor, indomethacin, suggesting the implication of NO pathway. On isolated rat hearts, CPC induced positive inotropic, chronotropic, and lusitropic effect at 10(-4)-10(-2) g/L while at 10(-1) g/L, it had negative lusitropic effect and other parameters returned to baseline values. Oral administration of 40 mg/kg of CPC for 2 weeks did not modify systolic blood pressure and heart rate of rats throughout the treatment. CPC treatment did not affect ex vivo response of isolated thoracic aorta either to the contractile agent noradrenaline or to the endothelial-relaxant agent, acetylcholine. Isolated hearts from treated rats were submitted to 30-min global ischaemia followed by 120 min of reperfusion. Post-ischaemic recovery of functional cardiac parameters was not modified by treatment with CPC. Infarct size measured after the reperfusion in heart from CPC-treated rats was significantly decreased in comparison with hearts from control group. We conclude that in vitro, CPC had NO-dependent vasorelaxant effects and stimulated cardiac function. Oral treatment with CPC appeared to have no impact in vivo on blood pressure, heart rate of the rats or on cardiac contractility ex vivo; however, it could decrease the infarct size after an ischaemia-reperfusion.