BACKGROUND:

As we age, both our blood vessels and heart muscle naturally become stiff and loose their ability to flex as the heart beats and blood pressure changes. This is believed to worsen both blood vessel and cardiac function in older individuals. The stiffened tissue is likely to be less able to adapt to the stresses and remodeling that occur after a heart attack (myocardial infarction) because the loss of functional heart tissue predisposes the heart to poor function and the hearts blood vessels undergo various changes in order to increase the supply of blood to the damaged areas.

DESIGN NARRATIVE:

VINTAGE-MI is a randomized, double blind study enrolling patients who have recently suffered their first heart attack. There are two recruitment clinics within the Johns Hopkins University Network, the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Following preliminary testing to establish eligibility and baseline function of both the heart and blood vessels, study participants will be randomly assigned to receive either L-Arginine or a placebo pill which is identical except that it does not contain L-Arginine. These pills will be taken orally 3 times a day for 6 months. Participants will return to the clinic 1, 3, and 6 months after they begin taking their medication to have the same functional testing repeated.