Filed Under HEART HEALTH
D-Ribose
by Dr. Stephen Sinatra
Published 03/31
D-ribose (or ribose) is a naturally-occurring sugar that has been extensively investigated in both animal and clinical models. It’s actually a sugar derivative of ATP and over the last few years it’s received special interest as a metabolic support for the heart.
Investigators believe that under certain cardiac conditions—especially during ischemic episodes like angina and heart attack when the heart is deprived of oxygen—there’s a profound depression of high energy compounds like ATP. It appears that those with ischemia have low levels of D-ribose which compromise the heart’s ability to resynthesize and regenerate ATP. A drop in ATP means a subsequent plummet in myocardial function, and the heart struggles to pump.
Ischemia may cause hearts to lose up to half of their ATP production ability. Even if blood flow and oxygen are restored to normal levels, it can take up to 10 days for an otherwise healthy heart to rebuild cellular energy stores and normalize diastolic cardiac function. However, when oxygen-starved hearts receive supplemental D-ribose, energy recovery and diastolic function return to normal in an average of 1.2 days!
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