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Acetaminophen may protect kidneys after severe muscle injury
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Acetaminophen administered after severe muscle injuries in a rat model prevented oxidative kidney damage and failure, according to a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The findings suggest that the commonly used pain reliever may act to protect the kidneys from damage and may offer a new treatment option for victims of earthquakes and explosions, according to a press release from Vanderbilt University Medical Center (UMC).
The findings from the international research team support further investigation regarding the safety of the drug and its effect on patients with severe muscle injuries.
New application, idea
“This is a novel application of acetaminophen,” Olivier Boutaud, PhD, the lead author of the study and research professor of pharmacology at Vanderbilt UMC, stated in the release.
He noted that the idea “came from two groups working on different things and getting together to create something new.”
When damaged skeletal muscle breaks down, a condition called rhabdomyolysis, myoglobin is among the cellular contents released into the bloodstream. About 10 years ago, L. Jackson Roberts II, MD, and his colleagues at Vanderbilt UMC found the released myoglobin deposits in the kidney and causes kidney failure through induced oxidative damage.
Around the same time, Boutaud and his colleagues were investigating acetaminophen and discovered that the drug blocked peroxidase activity in the cyclooxygenase enzyme.
Inhibited activity
The two teams consulted with each other and realized that the myoglobin in the rat rhabdomyolysis model had a pseudo-peroxidase type of activity similar to the peroxidase activity that was blocked by the acetaminophen.
The teams thought that “maybe acetaminophen would inhibit the pseudo-peroxidase activity of hemoproteins like myoglobin,” Roberts stated in the release. “And it does.”
Colleagues at the University College London Medical School conducted the rat model studies and found that administering acetaminophen before or after muscle injury prevented oxidative injury to the kidneys.
Potential uses
Acetaminophen may prevent tissue damage in sickle cell disease, malaria or heart attacks in which cardiac muscle breakdown releases myoglobin.
Soldiers who are at risk for suffering muscle injuries from gunfire or explosive devices may also benefit from immediate administration of acetaminophen in the battlefield, Roberts noted in the release.
Roberts, Oates and Boutaud have filed a patent for this use of acetaminophen.
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom and the National Institutes of Health supported this study.
- Reference:
Boutaud O, Moore KP, Reeder, BJ, et al.Acetaminophen inhibits hemoprotein-catalyzed lipid peroxidation and attenuates rhabdomyolysis-induced renal failure. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010.