Injecting a person?s own stem cells directly into heart muscle appears safe and useful in treating end-stage heart failure, according to a rapid track report today from Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
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.
Anti-inflammatory drugs used to treat arthritis may also benefit people with heart disease by improving blood vessel flexibility and reducing inflammation, according to a small study in today’s rapid track report from Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. “Increasing evidence indicates that atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease,” says senior author Frank Ruschitzka, M.D., of the department of cardiology at University Hospital in Z?rich, Switzerland. “Thus, anti-inflammatory agents used to treat arthritis, such as COX-2 inhibitors, may not only reduce inflammation in the joints, but could possibly have that same anti-inflammatory benefit in the vessel wall. This study is the first to show that relationship.”