Word: prostacyclines
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...other researchers. PGs often work in antagonistic pairs. One, for example, lowers blood pressure, while another raises it. One dilates bronchial tubes, a second constricts them. One promotes the inflammatory process, another inhibits it. A type called thromboxanes, discovered in platelets by Samuelsson in 1973, helps blood to clot; prostacyclin, a PG identified by Vane in 1976, is the most powerful natural inhibitor of clotting...
...platelet fighter is that old standby, aspirin. Results so far have been equivocal, but, says Goodman, "many doctors, including myself, tell patients with a very high risk of heart disease to take half an aspirin a day." A drug for possible future use is a synthetic version of prostacyclin, a chemical related to thromboxane but produced by the cells lining the artery and having exactly the opposite effect: it relaxes blood vessels and prevents platelets from clumping...
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