Ability of Metoprolol to Alter the Exercise Induced Elevation of Catecholamines
Status:
Unknown status
Trial end date:
2009-12-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Heart failure is a frequent disease in Denmark, and it is associated with very high
mortality. Around 60,000 people in Denmark have heart failure, and there is about 11,000
hospitalizations every year due to this disease. From the time of diagnosis, patients survive
an average of 4-5 years.
A critical illness mechanism in heart failure is that these patients have high blood levels
of catecholamines; epinephrine and norepinephrine, which is stress hormones from the
sympathetic nervous system. Standard treatment of heart failure is with the two medical
preparations betablockers and ACE-inhibitors.
It is not known what effect betablocker-treatment have on blood concentration of epinephrine
and norepinephrine.
It is the purpose of this study, to investigate the effect of Selo-Zok ® (metoprolol) on the
blood concentration of epinephrine and norepinephrine. This is done by creating a stress
condition for the body, in this case with the bicycle test, while doing blood samples to
determine the concentration of catecholamines. This will be done by 1-week treatment of
tablet Selo-Zok ® followed by 1-week treatment of placebo (a substance with no medical
effect). Blood samples will be taken to determine small changes in inheritance material (DNA)
in the form of point mutations also called single nucleotide polymorphisms, since these
changes can affect how we respond to metoprolol treatment.