Biological & Pharmaceutical Bulletin 2012-01-01

A novel drug delivery system of oral curcumin markedly improves efficacy of treatment for heart failure after myocardial infarction in rats.

Yoichi Sunagawa, Hiromichi Wada, Hidetoshi Suzuki, Hiroki Sasaki, Atsushi Imaizumi, Hiroyuki Fukuda, Tadashi Hashimoto, Yasufumi Katanasaka, Akira Shimatsu, Takeshi Kimura, Hideaki Kakeya, Masatoshi Fujita, Koji Hasegawa, Tatsuya Morimoto

Index: Biol. Pharm. Bull. 35(2) , 139-44, (2012)

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Abstract

Curcumin is an inhibitor of p300 histone acetyltransferase activity, which is associated with the deterioration of heart failure. We reported that native curcumin, at a dosage of 50 mg/kg, prevented deterioration of the systolic function in rat models of heart failure. To achieve more efficient oral pharmacological therapy against heart failure by curcumin, we have developed a novel drug delivery system (DDS) which markedly increases plasma curcumin levels. At the dosage of 0.5 mg/kg, DDS curcumin but not native curcumin restored left ventricular fractional shortening in post-myocardial infarction rats. Thus, our DDS strategy will be applicable to the clinical setting in humans.