New heart attack warning sign

FARMINGTON, Conn., Jan. 7 (UPI) -- U.S. cardiologists suggest a protein fragment detected in the blood may be a predictor of heart attack.

Study leader Dr. Bruce Liang of the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington and colleagues Drs. Mariela Agosto, Michael Azrin and Kanwar Singh of the University of Connecticut Health Center and Dr. Allan Jaffe of the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minn., say heart attack patients had higher levels of CAspase-3 p17 in their blood.

"We've discovered a new biomarker for heart attack, and showed that apoptosis, or a particular kind of cell death, is a cause of heart muscle damage." Liang says in a statement. "The ability to see a heart attack coming with a simple blood test and to develop new therapies to block apoptosis would enable us to get a head start on treatment and preserve crucial heart muscle and cardiac function."

The findings, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, demonstrate how this new biomarker provides another new way to diagnose heart attack.

"We've discovered a new biomarker for heart attack, and showed that apoptosis, or a particular kind of cell death, is a cause of heart muscle damage," Liang says in a statement.