But now we have revealed that obesity itself could be a driver of hearts starting to fail. Zahra Raisi-Estabragh, from Queen Mary University of London, who supervised the study, said: “We already know that obesity increases the risk of heart and circulatory diseases that can go on to cause heart failure. This risk occurred regardless of other risks for heart failure such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. The largest study of its kind on 490,000 people found that those with a higher body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-hip ratio had about a 30 percent increased risk of heart failure. Separate research being presented at the same conference found that obesity can drive hearts to fail and weaken their structure. Second language acquisition research has shown that such negotiation for meaning can elicit and scaffold more elaborate, productive use of the target. If the benefits are replicated in further research and then in patients, these gels could become a significant component of future treatments to repair the damage caused by heart attacks.” “This new injectable technology harnesses the natural properties of peptides to potentially solve one of the problems that has hindered this type of therapy for years. However, this also means that more people are surviving with damaged hearts and are at risk of developing heart failure. James Leiper, an associate medical director at the BHF, said: “We’ve come so far in our ability to treat heart attacks and today more people than ever survive. The study is being presented at the British Cardiovascular Society conference in Manchester. To gain more knowledge, researchers will test the gel after mice have a heart attack to show they develop new muscle tissue. When they added human cells reprogrammed to become heart muscle cells into the gel, they were able to grow in a dish for three weeks and the cells started to spontaneously beat.Įchocardiograms (ultrasounds of the heart) and electrocardiograms (ECGs, which measure the electrical activity of the heart) on mice confirmed the safety of the gel.
To prove the technology could work, researchers showed the gel can support growth of normal heart muscle tissue.