What exactly is Rho-kinase (ROCK)?
The below study is on RATS, but hey, given the scarcity of any studies on humans I'll take whatever scraps I can get.
"ROCK mediates vascular smooth muscle contraction, actin cytoskeleton organization, cell adhesion, and motility.55 Thus, abnormal ROCK activity may contribute to abnormal smooth muscle contraction". (from a different study)
Restoration of Erectile Function by Suppression of Corporeal Apopto... - PubMed - NCBI (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25444982)
RESULTS:
The cavernous nerve crush injury group showed significantly lower intracavernous pressure/mean arterial pressure, and higher maintenance and drop rates than the sham surgery group. Rho-kinase inhibition in the injury plus fasudil group restored erectile responses and dynamic infusion cavernosometry parameters. Increased apoptosis, decreased immunohistochemical staining of α-SMA and increased caspase-3 activity were noted in the injury group. In that group densitometry revealed increased ROCK1 expression, increased MYPT1 phosphorylation, decreased Akt phosphorylation, decreased Bad phosphorylation and a decreased Bcl2-to-Bax ratio. A significantly decreased smooth muscle-to-collagen ratio and increased fibroblast pCofilin were also observed in the injury group, as was increased phosphorylation of cofilin, a downstream effector of LIMK2. Rho-kinase inhibition in the injury plus fasudil group alleviated the histological and molecular dysregulation."
I would like very much to fully restore my erectile function, but I don't understand nothing from the study in the link :(
James
I also wish I could understand it properly, I did note though that the article says "Our data suggest that early inhibition of Rho-kinase ..." and made me wonder that any of us would benefit as we tend (generally) to hope it goes away before seeking help.
BTW I've been taking statins for a while and yes they got my cholesterol down but they haven't helped my peronies :-\