The start of your day is the most dangerous part of it – heart attacks are both more likely and more lethal in the morning. But a type of chemical made by your body from fish oils can protect you from this, and may lead to new drugs to help people with heart disease.
Resolvins are a type of substance made by our immune cells from DPA, an omega-3 fatty acid. of Queen Mary University of London and his colleagues have discovered that the level of resolvins in our blood peaks at around 7 am. However, when they examined the blood of 16 people with heart disease, they found that they had only around a third as much resolvin in their blood in the morning as people without heart disease.
The team then tested these chemicals in the lab, finding that they suppress inflammation of monocytes and neutrophils, two types of immune cell. “This reduces their ability to form tiny clots,” says Dalli. Such clots are a risk factor for heart attacks and strokes, he says, and they contribute to atherosclerosis – the building up of plaques in arteries.
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When the team gave resolvins to mice that had been fed a high-fat diet, they produced half as many tiny clots – known as aggregates – and lowered fatty damage to the aorta by 20 per cent.
But fish oil supplements won’t be enough to help people with heart disease make more early-morning resolvins. Dalli and his colleagues found that people with heart disease lack a key enzyme in their monocytes and neutrophils so they cannot make resolvins from DPA.
Dalli’s team hopes to produce slow-release capsules of resolvins, which could be taken before bed, for example, to maximise the level of these compounds in the blood at daybreak. “If we can add back the resolvins, we can take these life-threatening aggregates away,” he says.
Circulation Research
