http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. The heart responds to the increased stress caused by chronically raised blood pressure, for example, by thickening its wall muscle. In the late stage of this condition, a risk of heart failure arises. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research have now succeeded in identifying a key molecule in the molecular signalling cascade responsible for this growth. Based on this discovery, they managed to achieve a significant reduction in cardiac wall thickening in animal experiments. In addition, they managed to partly reduce existing thickening of the cardiac wall. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-pathological-thickening-cardiac-wall-halted.html Cardiology Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:26:00 EST news283512344 Unfortunately, newspaper articles about young athletes dying suddenly on the field are not unheard of. Such reports fuel discussions about compulsory screening, for example of young footballers, for heart failure. Research by scientists from Ghent (VIB/UGent) and Italy will benefit these screening methods. They have discovered a link between mutations in a certain gene and the heart condition Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-discovery-screening-sudden-cardiac-death.html Cardiology Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:39:58 EST news274531181 Blood vessels are extremely dynamic: depending on the external conditions, they can adapt their permeability for nutrients, their contractility, and even their shape. Unlike cardiac muscle cells, for example, the smooth muscle cells in blood vessels demonstrate a high degree of plasticity, so they can specialise or multiply as required, even repairing damage to the vessel wall. This vascular remodelling is evidently precisely regulated. Disruptions are extremely significant in conditions such as atherosclerosis or high blood pressure. At the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim, scientists conducting research on genetically modified mice have discovered how external signals regulate vascular remodelling at cell level. This has created an entirely new understanding of regulation, which could pave the way for new approaches in the prevention and treatment of atherosclerosis and other vascular diseases. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-proteins-remodelling-blood-vessels.html Medical research Tue, 13 Nov 2012 13:24:58 EST news272035465 (Medical Xpress)—Cardiac stress, for example a heart attack or high blood pressure, frequently leads to pathological heart growth and subsequently to heart failure. Two tiny RNA molecules play a key role in this detrimental development in mice, as researchers at the Hannover Medical School and the Göttingen Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry have now discovered. When they inhibited one of those two specific molecules, they were able to protect the rodent against pathological heart growth and failure. With these findings, the scientists hope to be able to develop therapeutic approaches that can protect humans against heart failure. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-heart-failure-mice.html Cardiology Tue, 25 Sep 2012 16:54:12 EST news267810840 Researchers have made a major advance in efforts to regenerate damaged hearts. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-heart-muscle-cell-grafts-suppress.html Medical research Sun, 05 Aug 2012 13:00:16 EST news263384994 A cutting-edge method developed at the University of Michigan Center for Arrhythmia Research successfully uses stem cells to create heart cells capable of mimicking the heart's crucial squeezing action. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-method-cardiac-muscle-patches-stem.html Cardiology Tue, 19 Jun 2012 09:40:10 EST news259317555 UNC researchers have discovered how the genetic defect underlying one of the most common congenital heart diseases keeps the critical organ from developing properly. According to the new research, mutations in a gene called SHP-2 distort the shape of cardiac muscle cells so they are unable to form a fully functioning heart. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-molecular-link-genetic-defect-heart.html Genetics Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:25:17 EST news247749883 By employing optogenetics, a new field that uses genetically altered cells to respond to light, and a tandem unit cell (TCU) strategy, researchers at Stony Brook University have demonstrated a way to control cell excitation and contraction in cardiac muscle cells, the details of which are published in the early online edition of Circulation: Arrhythmia & Electrophysiology: “Stimulating Cardiac Muscle by Light: Cardiac Optogenetics by Cell Delivery.” The team of scientists, led by Emilia Entcheva, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Physiology & Biophysics, and the Division of Cardiology in Medicine, Stony Brook University, includes members of the inter-departmental Institute of Molecular Cardiology at Stony Brook. The authors claim that their technique may help form the basis for a new generation of light-driven cardiac pacemakers and other medical devices. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-technique-heart-muscle-light-controlled-pacemakers.html Cardiology Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:16:58 EST news233219760 Scientists at Johns Hopkins have shown in laboratory experiments in mice that blocking the action of a signaling protein deep inside the heart's muscle cells blunts the most serious ill effects of high blood pressure on the heart. These include heart muscle enlargement, scar tissue formation and loss of blood vessel growth. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-animal-reveal-route-heart-disease.html Cardiology Mon, 02 May 2011 12:11:49 EST news223557091 New insight into the physiology of cardiac muscle may lead to the development of therapeutic strategies that exploit an inherent protective state of the heart. The research, published by Cell Press online on April 19th in the Biophysical Journal, discovers a state of cardiac muscle that exhibits a low metabolic rate and may help to regulate energy use and promote efficiency in this hard-working and vital organ. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-cardiac-muscle-potential-cardio-protective-mechanism.html Cardiology Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:12:33 EST news222437536