patient 39 s blood pressure and later increasing gradually to higher dosage levels desirable for achieving the anti apoptotic effect the later dosage level is high enough to substantially reduce a naive patient 39 s blood pressure but due to the tolerance that has been achieved in the patient the compound 39 s blood pressure lowering effect is reduced to tolerable levels an alternative way to offset the hypotensive effects of no donors such as nitroglycerin is to co administer with the no donating compounds agents such as phenylephrine dopamine or yohimbine see e g ma et al cardiovasc pharmacol 20 826 836 1992 these agents may be given parenterally e g iv or orally depending on the drug nitroglycerin may be administered by transdermal patch as described in detail in my u s pat no 5 455 279 referenced above alternatively a long lasting nitrate formulation such as isosorbide dinitrate sr tablets which are usually administered every 8 12 hours are administered more frequently e g every 4 hours to induce cardiovascular tolerance but preserve their effect on nitrosylation of caspases it is also useful to administer superoxide dismutase sod catalase or both to limit toxicity by decreasing the formation of peroxynitrite from the reaction of no u00b7 with superoxide anion o 2 u00b7 u2212 the compound may be included in a pharmaceutical preparation using a pharmaceutical carrier e g physiological saline the exact formulation of the therapeutic mixture depends upon the route of administration preferably the compound is administered orally or intravenously but it may also be administered sublingually by nasal spray by transdermal patch subcutaneously intraventricularly intravitreally or by ointment the preferred compounds nitroglycerin or their derivatives including all those preparations commercially.