Technorati Tags: Sodium Nitrite, Hot Dogs, NIH, MedicineCould the salt that preserves hot dogs also preserve your health?
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health think so. They've begun infusing sodium nitrite into volunteers in hopes that it could prove a cheap but potent treatment for sickle cell anemia, heart attacks, brain aneurysms, even an illness that suffocates babies...
Beyond repairing the reputation of this often-maligned meat preservative, the work promises to rewrite scientific dogma about how blood flows, and how the body tries to protect itself when that flow is blocked. Indeed, nitrite seems to guard tissues - in the heart, the lungs, the brain - against cellular death when they become starved of oxygen...
"We are turning organs into hot dogs," [Dr. Gladwin] said jokingly. Then he turned serious: "We think we stumbled into an innate protection mechanism..."
I'm Dr. Joshua Schwimmer, a nephrologist and internal medicine physician in New York City. • Kidney Notes was the first active nephrology blog. (Trivia: Kidney Notes is so old that the National Library of Medicine still uses it as an example of how to formally cite blogs.) • Professionally, you can find me at Kidney.nyc. • Kidney Notes is for educational purposes only, not medical advice. Consult qualified health care professionals. See disclaimer.
Thursday, September 8, 2005
Therapeutic Benefit of Sodium Nitrite, the Preservative in Hot Dogs?
From RedNova: