A failed heart can heal itself

The heart can heal itself and regenerate new muscle and tissue.

Scientists have been astonished to witness the heart’s own recuperative powers after heart failure.  “Heart muscle cells can actually regenerate, which is really exciting because it solidifies the notion that there is an intrinsic capacity of the human heart to regenerate,” said Hesham Sadek, a cardiologist at the University of Arizona Health Sciences.

His team used carbon dating techniques to see if heart tissue, taken from people who had suffered heart failure, was creating new cells.  But the phenomenon was mainly seen in tissue taken from patients who had artificial hearts, known as a left ventricular assist device, which were regenerating at six times the rate of healthy hearts.

This suggests that the heart needs time to ‘rest’ to regenerate, the scientists reckon.  “If you’re playing soccer and you tear a muscle, you need to rest it, and it heals,” said Sadek.  In research published in 2011, Sadek had established that heart muscle cells divide in the womb but stop after birth and instead devote all their energies to pumping blood; the process starts again only when a patient is fitted with an artificial heart, giving it the ‘break’ it needs to heal.

The discovery raises questions.  It suggests that some patients could have their artificial hearts removed once their hearts had healed, but this regeneration is seen only in 25 percent of patients and the researchers want to understand why healing is not seen in all patients with artificial hearts.

It also opens up an even bigger question of how a healthy heart could also generate new cells and stay biologically young as the scientists have demonstrated it has the capability.

It’s a question worth answering as around seven million Americans suffer heart failure every year, and it accounts for 14 percent of all deaths.  Apart from a heart transplant, the only treatment is pump replacement through an artificial heart.

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