Improvement of cardiac ventricular function bymagnesium treatment in chronic streptozotocin-induceddiabetic rat heart

OBJECTIVE: ) on cardiac function and the possible role of histological and electrical alterations in chronic, streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. METHODS: or saline for four weeks. Cardiac contractile and electrocardiographic parameters were measured on Langendorff-perfused hearts. Other hearts were histologically stained or immunoblotted for the mitochondrial ATP synthase (ATP5A). RESULTS: prevented a diabetes-induced decrease in left ventricular developed pressure and improved contractility indices, as well as attenuated the reduction in heart rate and prolongation of QT interval, but not the QT interval corrected for heart rate (QTc). Histologically, there were neither differences in cardiomyocyte width nor interstitial collagen. The expression of ATP5A was not different among the treatment groups. CONCLUSIONS: supplementation improved cardiac contractile activity in chronic diabetic hearts via mechanisms unrelated to electrocardiographic or histologically detectable myocardial alterations.