Heart disease severity may depend on nitric oxide levels

Heart disease severity may depend on nitric oxide levels.

Study finds nitric oxide may also determine drug efficacy.

  • The most common heart medications may get an assist from nitric oxide circulating in the body, according to a new study.

  • Researchers showed that nitric oxide may help commonly used heart drugs maximize their benefits while improving heart function.

  • In turn, the study found nitric oxide deficiencies could underlie heart failure while tilting drug effects toward more harmful pathways and side effects.


    Hiroki Hayashi, Douglas T. Hess, Rongli Zhang, Keiki Sugi, Huiyun Gao, Bea L. Tan, Dawn E. Bowles, Carmelo A. Milano, Mukesh K. Jain, Walter J. Koch, Jonathan S. Stamler. S-Nitrosylation of β-Arrestins Biases Receptor Signaling and Confers Ligand Independence. Molecular Cell, 2018; 70 (3): 473 DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2018.03.034