heart helper. The hearts of mice treated with thymosin protein b 4 (right panels) before a simulated heart attack have less scar tissue (blue) and the healthiest muscle (red) that the hearts of untreated mice (left panels).
beer and whiskey could help countries singers overcome their hearts broken, but new research may point to a more effective medicine. A protein that normally plays a role in heart development promising in early mouse to help the heart recover after a heart attack.
Approximately one million people have heart attacks in the United States each year. The difficulty starts when the pieces of plates up in the arteries from detaching and obstruct blood flow to the heart muscle. This starves the muscle for oxygen and kills cells. Doctors minimize damage to muscle cells with drugs and thrombolytic stents, but 5 million people living with partially dead hearts. experimental therapies that treat heart attacks have so far improved pumping of blood by less than 10%.
pediatric cardiologist Deepak Srivastava of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas found the new protein, called thymosin b 4, while searching for proteins that could help children with malformed hearts. Biochemical tests revealed that thymosin b 4 causes cells to activate genes that help them survive in adverse conditions, such as lack of oxygen. To determine whether thymosin b 4 has wider talents, the simulation team of heart attacks by ligating an artery that supplies part of the heart muscle in mice 58. Then they injected saline or thymosin b 4 in the bloodstream or directly into the heart.
Four weeks later, the mice hearts treated with thymosin b 4- -with either method - a lot of blood pumped almost twice that mice hearts not processed. Core cross-sections showed that the treated mice also half of scar tissue as untreated mice, indicating that fewer cells had died in the treated mice, the researchers report in the November issue 25 Nature . Srivastava said they are already preparing to test thymosin b 4 in humans.
"This compound is one of the best prospects for how we could reduce the size of heart attacks," says cardiologist Michael Schneider molecular Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He added that the thymosin b 4 works five times better than stem cells - the best experimental option - to maintain the living heart cells. If the compound works as well in humans as in mice, Schneider said, possibly emergency personnel could give to people who have just had a heart attack.
Related Sites
Deepak Srivastava website
more on heart attacks from the American Heart Association
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