It’s a common medical device, found in every ambulance, doctor’s office, perhaps even in your own home. And simply blowing up a blood pressure cuff around your arm when you’re having a heart attack can reduce the amount of permanent heart muscle damage by up to one half, an international team of researchers co-ordinated from Toronto’s prestigious Hospital for Sick Children has found.
Although it goes by the rather unwieldy name “remote ischemic pre-conditioning”, the technique, developed by doctors at Sick Kids, is exquisitely simple, cheap, non-invasive and safe.
It involves inflating a standard blood pressure cuff on the upper arm of someone having a heart attack for five minutes, and deflating it for another five minutes, repeating the cycle four times.
The procedure exploits the most powerful, inborn protective mechanism the human body uses to protect its tissues from harm. (more…)
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