Researchers Rebuild Failing Hearts Without Surgery

Monday, August 13, 2012 4:32 PM

By Charlotte Libov


Instead of undergoing a heart transplant or another type of risky surgery, heart patients may soon have a much better option. Researchers say the day is coming soon when they’ll be able to regenerate ailing heart muscle with a simple injection or catheter to deliver healing “nanomaterials” to the organ.

“Regenerative medicine is the next generation of treatments,” said Dr. Chauncey Crandall, chief of the cardiac transplant program at the world-renowned Palm Beach Cardiovascular Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

SPECIAL: A recent study in the journal Science Translational Medicine described how researchers in Taiwan successfully delivered tiny lattices of nanofibers along with a growth molecule called VEGF into animal hearts that had been damaged by heart attacks. The fibers helped the heart tissue regenerate without harmful side effects. They believe that a similar method could be used to regenerate damaged heart tissue in humans.

Nanotechnology is the science of manipulating materials on a molecular level to create functional systems or devices on a microscopic level. This type of technology is currently being used in many ways in medicine, from the coating of drug stents to the targeted delivery of medications directly to organs that need it, as opposed to flooding the body with medication.

By using nanotechnology to deliver the VEGF directly to the heart’s tissue, the scientists avoided the problem of infusing VEGF into the entire body, where it might have negative effects. “You don’t want to send VEFG to other organs because it could cause cancer,” Dr. Crandall noted.

According to the researchers, their study showed as much as a 70 percent improvement in heart function, a threefold improvement in the regeneration of small blood vessels, and a fivefold increase the growth of new arteries.

Right now, there are no approved methods for treating heart failure in humans this way. The standard method of treating end-stage cardiac failure is with a heart transplant, a drastic measure that relies on donor hearts, which are in short supply.

Nanotechnology treatment could save many patients who need a transplant, but are too old to survive major surgery or have other health problems that make them a poor candidate for a new heart.

In addition to the VEGF delivery system, Dr. Crandall says there are other promising technologies in the field of regenerative medicine, such as stem cell research, that could dramatically change cardiac care.

In the meantime, we should not wait for research to save us from ourselves, he said: “We can start rebuilding our own heart muscle and coronary arteries now with a heart-healthy lifestyle.

“Eating a plant-based diet and exercising, which means walking at least an hour a day, reverses heart disease and also helps build new collateral blood flow to the heart,” said Dr. Crandall. “So why wait for medical science to do things we can do ourselves – I call this ‘macrotechnology.’”

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