Test question… True or False? There is a no difference between diabetic and non diabetic hearts in how they burn energy. Hmm, I am going to bet that at least half of you got this answer correct. If you answered false, you are a big winner!
Diabetic hearts rely almost exclusively on fats for energy while a “normal” heart relies on fats and sugars for food.
Let me break it down for you. Both PPAR-alpha and PPAR-beta/delta are proteins that are found in heart tissue. In the diabetic heart, enhanced activity of PPAR-alpha drives the use of fats as fuel, but the …read more

Oh boy, I get so darn excited when I read anything about the progress of stem cell research. Yes, you know which side of the debate I sit on. Scientists are getting closer and closer to the use of stem cells to help rejuvenate damaged cardiac tissue!
The two major hurdles that needed to be tackled are becoming a reality…
…via Science Daily- solve two problems in the development of a stem cell heart patch. The first is undesirable side effects, such as arrhythmia, that can result from immature and undeveloped cardiomyocytes being introduced to the heart. The second is the need …read more

The first heart transplant was 40 years ago and the patient lasted a little over 2 weeks. That may not have been lengthy but it sure was ground breaking. Now 4 decades later we are performing less and less heart transplants. Why?
Could it be the ability to keep very sick hearts alive and working effectively for longer amounts of time then previous? Quite possibly! Could it be that even though there are more registered organ donors, our organs aren’t exactly what they used to be? High cholesterol, smoking, alcohol abuse and older donors… a different type of death.
What do you …read more

Here are a few good links and articles that go right along with our Hearty blog… Have a great Sunday!
We all know that smoking cigarettes increases your risk for heart disease, right? Then why don’t more people quit? Well duh, it is an addiction after all so that makes it more than tough. Researchers have found that the individual differences in brain chemistry can have a profound effect on a person’s susceptibility to addiction, and smoking may predispose adolescents to mental disorders in adolescence and adulthood such as affective disorders like depression. It is a vicious cycle!
Another risk factor …read more

How do you feel about AED’s in schools? I know as a parent of 3 little girls, 2 of which are now full day in the school system, I say “heck yeah”. They are so easy to operate and it saves that 5-10 minutes of “down time” while awaiting the ambulance.
How many children actually die from sudden cardiac arrest? An astounding 7,000 a year. Holy stuff! And worse yet, it is estimated that over 200,000 high school athletes dies suddenly from cardiac arrest yearly.
The exact causes in many cases are unknown. Congenital heart abnormalities …read more

Human embryonic cells has helped rebuild heart tissue in rats. Yes, the research was on rats but promising and welcomed none the less. Here is what the group of US researchers had to report…
Implanting human embryonic stem cells in rats four days after they had heart attacks repaired heart muscles and improved heart function, researchers from the University of Washington and the biotechnology company Geron report in an article appearing Monday in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
Previous attempts to “heal” with stem cells in a cardiac fashion have failed secondary to the limited success of deriving heart cells from …read more

How do you get around that very ethical debate of using stem cells from embryonic tissue? Well, how about using your own. This application of stem cell transplants is currently being researched in diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. And we can now add damaged heart tissue to the list…
British scientists are to try out a new way to repair damage caused by heart attacks. By injecting patients’ damaged hearts with stem cells from their own bone marrow scientists hope to regenerate tissue.
Researchers are hoping that this pioneering project will put them one step closer to using stem cells …read more