Scientists claim it is possible to repair the damage caused by a heart attack by toying with stem cells in the body

Nov 20, 2014 12:00 GMT  ·  By

In this day and age, a heck lot of people suffer a heart attack on a daily basis. More often than not, such incidents leave them with a broken heart. Literally.

The good news is that, by the looks of it, it might be only a matter of time until heart attack survivors can have stem cells take care of erasing all signs of trauma and getting their ticker back in the game.

Using stem cells to repair and regenerate heart tissue

Speaking at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2014 in the city of Chicago, US, this past November 18, researchers explained that the idea is to deliver a so-called stem cell factor to an area that's been damaged by a heart attack.

The stem cell factor that they have in mind is basically a protein that is involved in cell signaling. This protein and others of its kind are usually released by cells and influence their behavior.

What this means is that the delivery of the stem cell factor to a heart area that's been damaged by an attack would be sort of like faking a battle cry in order to gather round the troops that can fight the damage.

Following this delivery, stem cells, i.e. undifferentiated biological cells that are naturally occurring in the body, should get to work repairing and regenerating the tissues that were injured during the heart attack, the Mount Sinai scientists behind this project say.

Mind you, these researchers are not all talk

To test their theory, the scientists behind this investigation carried out a series of laboratory experiments. Specifically, they resorted to gene transfer to have the stem cell factor of their choice reach damaged heart tissue.

In the aftermath of this transfer, specialized cardiac stem cells reported for duty at the site of injury and took care of repairing the damage caused by the heart attacks that the researchers themselves induced.

Apart from repairing and regenerating the injured tissue, the stem cells decreased heart muscle cell death, improved cardiac function, prevented the formation of scars, and even helped regenerate local blood vessels.

“Our discoveries offer insight into the power of stem cells to regenerate damaged muscle after a heart attack,” study lead author Kenneth Fish, PhD, commented on the outcome of this series of experiments.

“It is clear that the expression of the stem cell factor gene results in the generation of specific signals to neighboring cells in the damaged heart resulting in improved outcomes at the molecular, cellular, and organ level,” added study senior author Roger J. Hajjar.

As encouraging as the outcome of these experiments might be, the fact of the matter is that it will surely be a while before this treatment option can be safely used to treat broken hearts in human patients. Still, the researchers are quite pleased with their work.

“This study adds to the emerging evidence that a small population of adult stem cells can be recruited to the damaged areas of the heart and improve clinical outcomes,” says Dr. Roger J. Hajjar in a statement.

Stem cells could help repair tissue damaged by a heart attack (5 Images)

Heart attacks are a common occurence in this day and age
Such incidents damage heart tissue, researchers explainApparently, stem cells could help solve the problem
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