A medium-chain fatty acid found in energy drinks might one day help protect against heart attack injuries.
“Heart attacks are still a leading cause of death worldwide, that often come with devastating complications,” said Zhong Wang, Ph.D., an associate professor of cardiac surgery at the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center, who is the senior author on a recent preclinical study in eLife. “Better options are needed to reduce injury to the heart after a heart attack, and even improve heart function. In this publication, we target the interplay between energy metabolism and epigenetics mediated by the medium chain fatty acid 8C.”
Wang and colleagues were able to protect against heart attack injury in rat models with octanoic acid, an eight carbon (8C) medium chain fatty acid, as well as a few other metabolites. Those fatty acids produced acetyl-CoA, a building block…
