A simple blood pressure cuff can limit heart damage!

blood pressure cuff help prevent heart attack damageSimply blowing up a blood pressure cuff around a person’s arm when they’re having a heart attack can reduce the amount of permanent heart muscle damage by up to half, the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto has found.

It is exquisitely simple, cheap and apparently 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. Total time is 35 minutes.

Cutting off blood flow in the arm in short, brief bursts, then restoring it again, causes the body to release a substance in the blood that sends a message around the entire body that something bad is about to happen. It warns and protects the heart from subsequent damage by triggering changes in heart cells so that they can better resist the lack of blood flow. It also makes white blood cells to react less aggressively, and thus causing less damage after the heart attack.

When done by a paramedic en route to the hospital a reduction of 30 to 50 per cent of the size and damage to the heart can be attained.

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