AURORA, Colo. (Feb. 18, 2011) — When the body is deprived of oxygen during a major surgery, the kidneys, heart muscles or lungs can be injured as a result. The problem is that lack of oxygen can lead to inflammation.
Yet some athletes d…
Researchers have determined the molecular machinery that triggers normal cardiac muscle growth and survival, and have linked defects in this complex to an inherited form of human cardiomyopathy, a type of heart failure where an enlarged heart loses its ability to pump blood. Published in the December 27, 2002 issue of the journal Cell, the study also identifies a subset of German cardiomyopathy patients with a specific gene mutation that disrupts the heart muscle’s normal stretch activity. This mutation has apparently been passed down through several generations of Northern Europeans.