Wonder Substance Spermidine Helps with Burn Wounds
Redaktion
Healing extensive burn wounds is a major challenge for the body
In a burn injury, the extent of tissue damage can become greater in the following days than was estimated immediately after the injury. In some circumstances, even doctors in emergency departments cannot always correctly assess how the consequences of the injury will progress. This phenomenon, which can last up to three days after exposure to heat, is known in specialist circles as “burn wound progression” or “afterburn”. Responsible for the progression of the injury are denatured proteins and microthrombi in the vessels around the primarily exposed area. As the surrounding tissue slowly dies, intensive care and surgical measures such as skin grafts may subsequently be necessary, depending on the duration and intensity of the heat and the size of the affected body surface.
Spermidine obtained from seminal fluid
Spermidine also occurs in foods
Spermidine, a natural substance found in seminal fluid but also in some foods, can extend life and improve cardiovascular health. Certainly in mice and rats, and according to researchers probably also in humans.
Some foods and their spermidine content:
Wheat germ 243 mg/kg, soybeans, dried 207 mg/kg, Cheddar cheese 199 mg/kg, mushrooms 89 mg/kg, rice bran 50 mg/kg, chicken liver 48 mg/kg, peas 46 mg/kg, mango 30 mg/kg, chickpeas 29 mg/kg, cauliflower, cooked 25 mg/kg, broccoli, cooked 25 mg/kg
Decades of poor diet, lack of exercise and high blood pressure can cause massive damage to the heart and make people increasingly susceptible to diseases of the “pump” and the blood vessels as they age. And as people live longer and longer, the number of heart diseases is also rising – even among those who have lived healthily. However, too little is yet known about the fundamental mechanisms of the progressive deterioration of ageing hearts to treat or prevent it, as Frank Madeo of the Institute of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Graz explained to the Austrian Press Agency (APA).
According to Madeo, so-called autophagy is one of the most important processes in the human body for keeping heart cells, too, healthy and functional. In this process of “self-eating”, the body’s cells break down their own defective components. They recycle them, especially during periods of hunger, to generate new building blocks and at the same time use them to produce energy. Without autophagy, cellular waste would accumulate in the cell and sooner or later prevent the cell from functioning smoothly.
Wonder substance spermidine
As Madeo and Tobias Eisenberg discovered back in 2009, the body’s own substance spermidine can boost this cellular cleaning process even outside periods of hunger. In laboratory tests, the Graz researchers observed that administering spermidine extends the lifespan of simple organisms such as yeast, fruit flies and nematodes. The polyamine occurs in high concentrations in male seminal fluid, but also in certain foods – such as wheat germ, soybeans, peas, some types of cheese, mushrooms and nuts. It was originally known for its function in cell growth.
In their current work, the team of researchers from the University of Graz and the Medical University of Graz, together with international colleagues from Germany, France and the USA, among others, found that the median lifespan of mice is extended by spermidine administered in drinking water. Above all, it was shown that spermidine improves heart function in older mice. This suggests that a delay in cardiac ageing contributes to increased lifespan, the scientists conclude.
Spermidine supplementation could be beneficial for humans
Mice with a genetic defect in autophagy in heart cells did not benefit from spermidine. This now leads the researchers to suspect that the protective effects of spermidine are based on its ability to activate autophagy.
The substance was also effective in rats that had raised blood pressure because of a high-salt diet, as the Graz first author Eisenberg summarises: additional spermidine led to a reduction in their blood pressure and an improvement in their heart function. “In animal models, spermidine increased cardiac elasticity and diastolic relaxation of the left ventricle, while thickening of the heart walls decreased. This means that the heart muscle can relax better between beats and therefore fill with more blood again,” Eisenberg explained.
The researchers have investigated, at least indirectly, whether taking spermidinecan be beneficial for humans. Using a questionnaire in which around 800 participants in South Tyrol stated how often they ate certain foods, higher spermidine intake was associated with a lower risk of heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases. As a next step, the researchers want to investigate the protective effects in humans in controlled clinical trials.
