Could Ischemic preconditioning reduce PEM

[kangaSue]

I was looking into any alternative methods to treat intestinal ischemia but when I came across this article http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=172741 I thought it might also be of interest to you guys here.

Ischemic preconditioning by repeatedly inflating and deflating a blood cuff for 5 minutes at a time before cardiac surgery helped prevent heart muscle damage in this study. I don't know if this technique would go so far as to also precondition skeletal muscles against ischemic insult if tried just before exertion but as it's seen to be safe, it would be a cheap, non-invasive experiment against PEM.

 

[kangaSue]

There are some studies into skeletal muscle effect from Ischemic Preconditioning in healthy volunteers where ischemia is induced by applying the cuff to the leg (around the thigh) to induce ischemia.

This study http://jap.physiology.org/content/111/2/530#ref-15 also looked for any difference between preconditioning or inducing ischemia post-exercise

This study of skeletal muscle in rats http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0741521407007744 concludes "it demonstrates that prolonged ischemia significantly impaired the mitochondrial respiratory chain at the level of complexes I and II in skeletal muscle and that ischemic preconditioning prevented such impairments".