| Stroke or cerebrovascular diseases are the third most common cause of death after heart infarct and cancer. Every sixth man will have during his life stroke, in other terms - every 6 seconds someone somewhere in the world dies after the stroke. Although the incidence of stroke is higher among elderly people stroke can hit anyone at any age. Equally serious situation is also toxic brain damage with tragic impact and injuries of the brain and spinal cord, often ending with the death or severe long-term damage. These situations are not only personal and family tragedy, but also extremely costly financial burden.
The adaptation to the conditions is one of the key skills of a living matter. From the time when it was discovered a level of studying was extended from the species up to the cells, molecules and genes. One of the manifestations of adaptability is called because that increases the resistance against insufficient blood supply to the organs or its parts – ischemic tolerance. Professional definition says that if is an organism, or its part subjected to adequate stress that it does not destroy, is able to build the defence which protects it for some time against the same or similar lethal stress. This is an extremely powerful endogenous defensive mechanism allowing survive multiples of lethal doses. This tolerance has been demonstrated in all animal species and in all tissues so far studied. In contrast to the stagnant pharmacological therapy of ischemic and postischemic damage, the significant advances in knowledge of the ischemic tolerance and in particular use of postconditioning, especially remote postconditioning, allows us to expect in the short time the development of safe and reproducible e.g. short limb ischemia or injection of appropriate stressors. The use of this mode of protection of the organism or its individual components is really in front of the doors of the clinical medicine. |