On the mechanism and possible therapeutic application of delayed adaptation of the heart to stress situations.

Mild (not harmful) stress may initiate an adaptive mechanism, protecting the heart from harmful consequences of a more severe stress. There are at least three known types of cardiac adaptation to stress, such as: a) the gradually developing, long lasting adaptation to chronic mechanical overload, leading to cardiac hypertrophy, later to cardiomyopathy and heart failure, b) the rapidly developing adaptation to moderate stress initiated by 'preconditioning' brief coronary occlusion(s) or brief periods of rapid cardiac pacing, protecting for less than 1 h against consequences of a subsequent, severe stress, c) the later appearing, more prolonged cardio-protective adaptation, described by us in 1983, induced by various forms of more severe but not injurious stimuli, such as an optimal dose of prostacyclin or its stable analogues; or a series of brief periods of rapid pacings. This form of cardiac adaptation to stress protects for 24-48 h against consequences of a more severe stress such as: 1. myocardial ischaemia; 2. early and late postocclusion and reperfusion arrhythmias; 3. early morphologic changes secondary to ischaemia and reperfusion; 4. ischaemia induced myocardial loss of K+ and accumulation of Na+ and Ca++; 5. it may increase the tolerance to the toxic effects of cardiac glycosides. A reduced response to beta-adrenergic stimuli and a concomitant increase in activity and amount of PDE I and IV was shown by us earlier.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)