(-)-Epicatechin and Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension
Status:
Withdrawn
Trial end date:
2014-01-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a progressive disease that results in severe
activity limitation and death. There are few treatments for PAH and the available medications
are expensive, difficult to administer and have significant toxicities.
(-)-Epicatechin is a non-toxic compound that naturally occurs in foods such as tea, wine and
chocolate. Clinical intervention studies using dark chocolate in normal volunteers and
subjects at risk for or with established cardiovascular disease have demonstrated
improvements in peripheral and coronary vascular endothelial function, blood pressure,
lipids, glucose tolerance and inflammatory markers.
Our study intends to examine the hemodynamics effects of purified (-)-epicatechin in subjects
with pulmonary arterial hypertension. We hypothesize purified (-)-epicatechin will reduce
pulmonary vascular resistance in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension.