DURHAM, N.C., April 1 (UPI) -- A U.S. study suggests the possibility of a therapy that could limit heart attack damage and might prevent heart attacks from even occurring.
The conclusion comes from Duke University Medical Center scientists who discovered mice born without a certain enzyme can resist the normal effects of a heart attack and retain nearly normal function in their heart's ventricles and still-oxygenated heart tissue. Normal mice that went through the same experiment had full heart attacks, suffering damage to their heart pumps and a lack of oxygen in their heart tissues.
The scientists, led by Dr. Jonathan Stamler, said they found that in mice lacking the enzyme GNSOR the blood was able to get around the blockage point that normally would cut off blood to the heart.
"There were blood vessels everywhere in these mice born without the enzyme," said Stamler. "The hope is that this discovery someday could result in a therapy for new blood vessel growth that could be a sort of natural bypass in humans."
The research that included Dr. Howard Rockman, chief of cardiology at the Duke Heart Center, is reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
