Hindawi Publishing Corporation Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2012, Article ID 825056, 5 pages doi:10.1155/2012/825056 Research Article The Effects of Velvet Antler of Deer on Cardiac Functions of Rats with Heart Failure following Myocardial Infarction Ming-Jing Shao,1 Shuo-Ren Wang,2 Ming-Jing Zhao,2 Xi-Ling Lv,2 Hao Xu,1 Lin Li,1 Huan Gu,1 Jiu-Liang Zhang,1 Ge Li,1 Xiang-Ning Cui,1 and Li Huang1 1 National Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine Center for Cardiovascular Disease, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing 100029, China 2 Laboratory of Traditional Chinese Internal Medicine, Dongzhimen Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100700, China Correspondence should be addressed to Li Huang, lihstrong@163.com Received 12 November 2011; Revised 12 February 2012; Accepted 13 February 2012 Academic Editor: Keji Chen Copyright © 2012 Ming-Jing Shao et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Velvet antler of deer (VAD) is a commonly-used kidney-Yang supplementing traditional Chinese medication. According to the heart-kidney-related theory, heart Yang originates in kidney Yang and heart failure due to heart Yang deﬁciency can be treated by tonifying kidney Yang. In this study, we investigated therapeutic eﬀects of VAD on cardiac functions in rats with heart failure following myocardial infarction. Forty-eight male Wistar rats were subjected either to left coronary artery ligation (N = 36) or to sham operation (N = 12). One week after the surgery, rats with heart failure received daily treatment of double-distilled water, captopril or VAD by gavage for consecutively four weeks, while sham-operated animals were given double-distilled water. Ultrasonic echocardiography was adopted to examine cardiac structural and functional parameters and serum brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) concentration was measured using radioimmunoassay. We found that VAD partially reversed changes in cardiac functional parameters and serum BNP levels in rats with heart failure. These results provide further evidence for the heart-kidney- related theory and suggest that VAD might be a potentially alternative and complementary medicine for the treatment of heart failure. 1. Introduction Velvet antler of deer (VAD) is a precious traditional Chinese medication, warm in nature and sweet and salty in ﬂavor, and is commonly used to treat various diseases by supplementing kidney Yang. According to TCM theories, kidney Yang de- ﬁciency can be presented in the symptoms including declin- ing libido, soreness, or cold sensation in the knees and lum- bar regions, spiritual fatigue, and so forth. Both clinical and animal studies have shown that VAD can promote the de- velopment of reproduction systems, relieve the pain of arth- ritis, nourish the neural cells, and so on [1]. These pharma- cological eﬀects provide empirical evidence for its role of tonifying kidney Yang. Heart failure (HF) is a clinical syndrome which all types of heart diseases will eventually develop into. Evidence from epidemiological studies has demonstrated that the incidence of HF in Chinese adults was 0.9%: it reached 0.7% in males and 1.0% in females [2]. From the perspective of the tradi- tional chinese medicine (TCM), the primary cause of HF is heart Yang deﬁciency that results from Qi inadequacy and blood stasis. According to the heart-kidney-related theory of TCM, heart Yang originates in kidney Yang, and therefore it is hypothesized that tonifying kidney Yang could be used to strengthen heart Yang and treat HF. Indeed, VAD has been reported to have protective eﬀects on the damaged heart muscle cells in the animal models of myocardial infarction via various mechanisms, such as reducing the release of en- dothelin [3], promoting superoxide dismutase activities, and decreasing serum malondialdehyde levels [4], and increasing the levels of nitric oxide and calcitonin-gene-related peptide [5]. In addition, oral administration of VAD has been found