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Scientists claim the possibility of restoring the heart after an infarction
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Specialists in the field of regenerative medicine have made a revolutionary discovery, which in the coming years, may completely change the principles of treatment of patients who have suffered a heart attack. Thanks to the new technology, scientists managed to ensure that the heart cells began to recover after damage. At this stage, scientists conduct all the work with laboratory rodents, but they assure that by 2020 they will be able to learn how to use this technology on a person.
It is known that the blood, skin, and hair cells of a person are constantly restored, but this does not apply to heart disease, here, despite all scientific achievements, medicine is virtually powerless. Now specialists do not know a method that could help in the recovery of cardiac cells (cardiomyocytes) that died off as a result of a heart attack. However, the new joint work of specialists from the Research University in Israel and the Institute of Cardiological Research in Sydney showed that humanity has a hope for a healthy future.
Scientists claim that after 5 years can apply the technology of cardiomyocyte recovery in humans, now it takes some time to improve the new treatment technique.
In the course of their research, specialists observed Danio fish and salamanders, in which, as is known, the process of cell regeneration occurs continuously, throughout life. In laboratory conditions, specialists tried to form a similar recovery system in rodents, which they used for their experiments.
Head of the scientific project, Richard Harvey explained the features of the animals that participated in the work. Salamanders and fish have always been of scientific interest to specialists, since only they have mechanisms to repair damaged heart cells. For these creatures, cell losses are replenished by earlier forms of cells, resulting in the formation of a new myocardium.
Team Harvey managed to launch a similar mechanism of recovery in rodents, causing the development of a special hormone in the heart. The hormone neuregulin in the human body ceases to be produced on the seventh day after birth, in rodents - on the twentieth.
When the production of this hormone resumes, the cardiac muscle acquires the ability to recover. In rodents who underwent a heart attack, the cardiac muscle after restoring the hormone production was restored to the state that was before the infarction.
The team of researchers believes that all the necessary additional studies will take about five years. Scientists want to make sure that this technology of cardiomyocyte recovery will be effective for the human body.
It is worth noting that the person who suffered a heart attack, irreversible damage to the heart cells. As a result, a person after a heart attack significantly reduces the quality of life and there are many restrictions. If the above described method works in the human body, then patients after a heart attack will be able to return to a full healthy life.
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