Abstract
More than 50% of the populations have used complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) or integrative medicine (IM) at least once. From a functional standpoint, CAM/IM may be defined as interventions neither taught widely in medical schools nor generally available in hospitals. Well-designed medical researches and clinical trials are urgently needed to test the safety and efficacy of CAM/IM. Far-infrared (FIR) light therapy and hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy are two emerging areas of CAM, and get much advances and utilization recently. Skin microcirculation plays an important role in chronic wound healing and hepatic ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury is a lethal complication met in transplantation and resection surgeries. The purpose of this study was to validate the role of FIR and HBO in skin microcirculation and hepatic I/R injury. Sixty rats were used in the FIR study. A WSTM TY301 far-infrared emitter was placed 20cm over the rats. Skin temperature and blood flow were continuously measured. Under laboratory control, the abdominal skin temperature steadily increased to 38 to 39°C, and was kept at constant temperature. The results showed that there was no significant change of skin blood flow during FIR treatment. Skin blood flow increased significantly soon after the removal of FIR emitter. The stimulating effect of skin blood flow was more significant in the rats treated with FIR for 45 min and could be sustained as long as 60 min. These findings suggested a non-thermic biological effect of FIR on skin microcirculation. The promotive effect of FIR on increasing skin blood flow was not influenced by pretreatment of APP (atropine, propranolol, phentolamine), but was suppressed by L-NAME (an eNOS inhibitor) pretreatment. In conclusion, FIR therapy exerts a NO-related biological effect to increase skin microcirculation in rats. This might bring into perspective the clinical application of FIR to treat ischemic disease by augmenting L-arginine/NO pathway. Daily treatment with one dose-HBO (90 minutes, 2.5ATA) was brought about for male Spraque-Dawley rats for one to three days before an I/R injury of liver. Hepatic expression of heat-shock protein 70 (Hsp70), total concentration of glutathione (GSH), activity of catalase, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and serum AST and ALT were estimated before and after HBO, as well as after I/R injury. The results showed that activity of hepatic catalase was decreased by one dose, but not three doses, of HBO as compared with baseline data. However, hepatic Hsp70 expression fluctuated insignificantly. AST and ALT increase less in rats preconditioned with one dose-HBO as compared with those without HBO or with 3 doses-HBO. These results showed preconditioning by one dose-HBO has protective on rat liver against subsequent ischemia-reperfusion injury. The present study is a scientific validation of CAM/IM in vascular medicine. Integrating FIR therapy and HBO therapy into conventional vascular therapies is beneficial to the patients with insufficient microcirculation and hepatic I/R injury.