Summary
The effects of alprenolol on heart rate and systolic blood pressure were studied in healthy subjects during standardized exercise on a bicycle ergometer. In one series of experiments, in which serum concentrations of alprenolol were also measured, the effects of single oral doses of 50, 100 and 200 mg of alprenolol and a placebo were compared by a double blind cross-over technique. In a second series of experiments 100 mg alprenolol was given four times in one day and the effect was followed for up to eighteen hours after the last dose. — Alprenolol diminished the expected increase in heart rate and systolic blood pressure during exercise. The reduction of exercise tachycardia in a given individual was linearly related to the logarithm of the dose or the serum concentration of alprenolol. The serum concentrations required for a given reduction of exercise tachycardia varied almost one hundred-fold amongst the subjects studied. The biological availability of alprenolol was dose-dependent, probably due to a limited capacity biotransformation of the drug before it entered the general circulation. After a single dose the serum level of alprenolol and its chronotropic effect diminished at a rate corresponding to an elimination half life of about two hours. This rate of elimination was consistent with that calculated from the results of the four dose study.
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Åblad, B., Ervik, M., Hallgren, J. et al. Pharmacological effects and serum levels of orally administered alprenolol in man. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 5, 44–52 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00560895
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00560895