mouse

Vitamin C transforms mouse stem cells into heart muscle cells

Vitamin C helped convert mouse embryonic stem cells growing in the laboratory to heart muscle cells, researchers report. This basic-research discovery could lead to future research on ways to treat people suffering from damaged heart muscle. “Although the findings of this study are very preliminary with respect to their impact on human lives, this line of research has enormous implications for the future care of thousands of patients who develop heart failure each year,” says Robert O. Bonow, M.D., president of the American Heart Association.

Study Shows Pre-Menopausal Females Protected From Heart Injury

Despite recent reports that hormone therapy does not offer protection for post-menopausal females against heart disease and heart attack, researchers from Duke University Medical Center have determined in mouse studies that non-hormone treated pre-menopausal females are, in fact, better protected from cardiac damage following ischemia compared to their male counterparts. The findings suggest that research should continue toward finding better ways to treat post-menopausal women to maintain such cardiac protection, the researchers said.