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Stem Cells in the Heart? 158

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the heart-could-be-heartier dept.
NewScientist reports that researchers have discovered stem cells in the heart, leading them to believe that the heart can regenerate itself. From the article: "The finding raises the possibility that these cardiac stem cells could one day be manipulated to rebuild tissues damaged by heart disease - still the leading cause of death in the US and UK. Because fully developed heart cells do not divide, experts have believed the organ was unable to regenerate after injury. But, in 2003, researchers at Piero Anversa's laboratory at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, US, discovered stem cells in the hearts of mice, and subsequently humans. However, they still did not know whether these stem cells actually resided in the heart or had merely migrated there from another tissue, such as bone marrow."
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Stem Cells in the Heart? More

Stem Cells in the Heart?

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  • what exactly is the news here? (Score:5, Informative)

    by aliscool ( 597862 ) * on Monday May 29, 2006 @10:28PM (#15426609)
    Hey, I'm not a stem cell researcher, and I did read the article...
    But there was really not much actual science in this article.
    Are we talking about adult, embryonic or.. I assume not, but cord blood stem cells.
    I assume we are talking about adult stem cells. These have been discovered and are old news. In fact adult stem cells exist in basically any tissue, which includes the heart... So what exactly was the big news story here about?

    • Re:what exactly is the news here? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Adriax ( 746043 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @10:33PM (#15426627)
      Well, since you aren't a researcher, lemme translate.

      "Stem cells! Stem cells! Look, we found stem cells! Give us more grant money!"

    • Re:what exactly is the news here? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Metaleks ( 977598 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @10:34PM (#15426630) Homepage
      The big news is that the heart was thought that it couldn't repair itself after damage has occurred. Damage like minor heart attacks (which people often don't even know about, yet still have them) create scars on the heart. Over time, the build up of these scars reduces the hearts ability to function properly. Now we learn, that there may be new hope in a heart that could regenerate. Think of all the lives that could be saved. That's the big deal!

      • Re:what exactly is the news here? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Doctor Beavis ( 571080 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @10:42PM (#15426652)
        Sort of. The news that there are cells in the heart that can impact repair was news - in 2003, as the article mentioned. This story was that they have gotten better at identifying where those cells are. An important step, but not as important as the 2003 step was.
      • Like the first poster, I'm no biologist, but I'm under the impression that stem cells replicate the cells they are around. If that's the case, then why CAN'T the heart replicate itself? If the cells are there, and the time is provided, shouldn't these stem cells become new heart tissue?
        • It maybe that it can. A problem could be that the damaged tissue never leaves though. This would make it apear to not be repiard and maybe even introduce other problems.

          It would be interesting to find out what the effects of removing the damaged tissue might be. Could it be possible that new functional tissue would grow in its place? Maybe enough to get the job done? Of course this is speaking from not knowing how the damaged tissue effect the hearts operation or if it has been tried before.
      • Growing New Heart Tissue [popsci.com]

        Although I tend to think that popular science articles like this one are more "look at the cool gadgets we want to exist in 20 years" rather than "look at the cool gadgets that will exist in 20 years," I think this article is very relevant to this topic, especially what you were saying about the heart regenerating itself after damage from minor attacks.

      • The big news is that the heart was thought that it couldn't repair itself after damage has occurred. Damage like minor heart attacks (which people often don't even know about, yet still have them) create scars on the heart. Over time, the build up of these scars reduces the hearts ability to function properly. Now we learn, that there may be new hope in a heart that could regenerate. Think of all the lives that could be saved. That's the big deal!

        Researchers look at stem cells as magic pixie dust able t

    • I do agree with you. The news sounds too deja vu-ish.

      Plus, there are other options on the 'market' right now. Babies, dead babies, pigs (more like transplant) and even cows (I watched 'House' for this, assuming it's true especially for Bowel transplant).

      Maybe I watched TV too much. Hm~

    • Re:what exactly is the news here? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Doctor Beavis ( 571080 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @10:39PM (#15426646)
      I'm doing some stem cell work in a very similar area and may be able to clarify a few points:

      1. They are not talking about embryonic cells. These are often referred to as "cardiac stem cells" and we each have them in our hearts. Thus they would be considered adult stem cells. As mentioned, their existence was established by Anversa's lab (and confirmed by others) a few years ago. That was a huge milestone, because we previously believed that all cells in the heart were "terminally differentiated" or incapable of generating new cells. We now know that there *are* cells in the hear that can do this, but not fast enough to make a difference in most cases. For example, if you have a heart attack, part of the muscle dies. For whatever reason (not enough cells, don't replicate fast enough, etc.), the cardiac stem cells are unable to completely repair the damage. Current trials of stem cells in the heart have focused on delivering cells derived from other sources (bone marrow, muscle cells, etc.), but it would be ideal to understand enough about the cardiac stem cells to be able to just "activate" them or at least improve the efficiency of what they do.

      2. You are absolutely right we are talking about adult stem cells and even that those exist in the heart is old news. The only news here is that this is a step towards identifying them more efficiently/effectively (which would help as alluded to in my point #1). It's an important step, but an incremental one and I don't think it merited a Slashdot story - I agree with you that it's not that big of a deal.
      • Since most cells in the heart are "terminally differentiated" or incapable of generating new cells, where does cardiac scar tissue come from when some cardiac tissue dies?

        Either some of those termianlly differentiated cells regress to an earlier state and then divide to create scar tissue, or scar tissue is the result of rapid division by cardiac stem cells, or there's something else happenning.

        Does anyone have any data on this?

        • Re:Cardiac Scar Tissue Mechanism (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Doctor Beavis ( 571080 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @08:45AM (#15427656)
          I know much less about this, so am sort of speculating, but I know that the scar consists of fibrous tissue, which is created from fibroblasts. There might be some of these present in the heart, but they more likely arrive via blood vessels, leave the vessels (extravasate), and migrate to the damaged area.
          • I'm putting together a multi-disciplinary project team to look into the homeostatic control processes (HCPs) in the human body in general and in the cardiovascular system in particular.

            The objective is to learn how those HPCs work, how they fail and how they can be repaired or failure prevented.

            The assumptions are:

            • The human body is, amongst other things, a very complex biochemical processing facility,
            • There are a vast number of homeostatic control processes in the human body,
            • Just as thousands of g
            • Sounds like an interesting project. I think that some of the people mentioned in the parent article would be a good place to start (Piero Anversa and Annarosa Leri). Roberto Bolli in Louisville also works in this area. Here are a couple of PubMed abstracts that I thought might be pertinent. I'm sure there are others, but you are likely to get some additional recommendations from either contacting some of these folks, or looking at the reference lists for their articles. Hope this helps!

              Kassab GS and Nav

            • Another person you might consider is Paul Fedak in Toronto. He has done work in the role of matrix metalloproteinase homeostasis in cardiac physiology. He can be contacted at: paul [dot] fedak [at] utoronto [dot] ca

              See also his article (Pubmed ID: 16256799) on the same in tje Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery in November 2005

              Hope this helps.

    • Ahh, but did you stay at a Holiday Inn Express?
    • The fact that stem cells reside "permanently" in the heart which provide the ability to rejenerate to some degree.

      Everything else you will find in a modern A&P textbook.
    • TFA didn't really go into any depth, but the news, if there is any, would depend upon how pluripotent the stem cells are; that is, what types of fully-formed cells they can produce. For a heart to regenerate after an insult such as an infarction, numerous cell types must be regenerated, from cardiac myocytes to the specialized neurons that synchronize the heartbeat (e.g. the sino-atrial complex). So, depending on what they can get to regenerate Real Soon Now, it may in fact be news.

  • Oh no (Score:5, Funny)

    by smvp6459 ( 896580 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @10:29PM (#15426610)
    Does this mean I won't be getting that gorilla heart?
    • Does this mean I won't be getting that gorilla heart?

      Even better: you could grow a new gorilla heart, if that kind of thing floats your boat. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it does, along with having a chicken brain implanted in your butt to drive your legs more efficiently.

  • Protest (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 29, 2006 @10:37PM (#15426640)
    Let me be the first to say I oppose removal of people's hearts to extract stem cells from them.

    • Re:Protest (Score:5, Funny)

      by paulthomas ( 685756 ) * on Monday May 29, 2006 @10:39PM (#15426645) Journal
      Removal of a person's heart to extract stem cells from it STOPS A BEATING HEART!!!!!

      that is all.
      • In Soviet Russia, Heart stops beating YOU!
      • Removal of a person's heart to extract stem cells from it STOPS A BEATING HEART!!!!!

        No it doesn't. Haven't you ever seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?

        Not only does a removed heart not stop beating, it also bursts into flame. That's wicked cool.

      • Re:Protest (Score:4, Interesting)

        by frickendevil ( 977786 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @09:59AM (#15427945)
        Supprisingly a heart can beat outside of the body, quite effectively too.

        The SA and AV nodes have a pacemaker feature that makes a heart beat at a constant rate of about 100 bpm (for SA control, 60~ for AV control), and this is not controlled by the CNS. However parasympathetic innervation of the heart slows the heart rate to about 70 bpm. This is why heart transplant patients have a high heart rate constantly, because they have no para/sympathetic control of the heart. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiac_pacemaker/ [wikipedia.org]

        Anyways if a good enough medium is made to supply the heart with nutrition, and about the same consistency as blood, it could support a heart beat for a fair while.

  • Heard of this before.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by dfenstrate ( 202098 ) <dfenstrate&gmail,com> on Monday May 29, 2006 @10:41PM (#15426650)
    This was news a few years ago when some folks got an electric pump installed to assist their failing heart, and their OEM heart recovered to the point where the pump was no longer needed.

    Fantastic they discovered stems cells, but the heart repairing itself when relieved of load is not news.

    (btw, I don't remember the name of the device used when they discovered this, but it was basically a small, simple liquid pump installed next to the heart. They didn't try to mimic a pulse, figuring it was unneccesary. They were right.)

    • Pumps (Score:5, Informative)

      by Doctor Beavis ( 571080 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @10:47PM (#15426664)
      These pumps are called LVADs, or Left Ventricular Assist Devices, and they have been widely used for years (and continue to be). Here's one site [chfpatients.com] with some pretty general, readable information on them. There are a few varieties (some provide pulsatile flow, like the HeartMate XVE) and some provide axial, non-pulsatile flow (HeartMate II). I don't work for Thoratec, but those are by far the most commonly used ones at my institution. Here is a link to some videos [thoratec.com] from Thoratec if you're interested. Hope you find this useful.
      • I don't work for Thoratec, but those are by far the most commonly used ones at my institution.

        With a username of Dr. Beavis, I hope to God you don't work for them :)

    • Re:Heard of this before.... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by iabervon ( 1971 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @11:23PM (#15426734) Homepage Journal
      There was a case recently where a girl with a transplanted heart couldn't stay on the anti-rejection drugs, and they were able to remove the transplanted heart and restart her original heart, which had recovered while she wasn't using it. A Google search for "organ removed" finds a bunch of stories about it.

    • Truly, you are a master geek... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ChePibe ( 882378 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @11:47PM (#15426774)
      "their OEM heart"

      Wow. I've never actually heard organs referred to as OEM.

      Imagine an organ transplant...

      "Well, sir, we can pop in this OEM model here, but it's pretty pricey. We do, however, have this third-party Korean heart that we could slap on in there, but it would violate your warranty and, lemme tell ya', those boys in inspections on the other side are unforgiving of that sort of thing. Of course, we could just throw a refurb in there, but those can be hard to come by..."

      All in good humor of course, thanks for your informative post
    • Doctors Barnard (two brothers) implanted second hearts into patients about 30 years ago in South Africa. This helped the original hearts to recover and then allowed them to remove the second heart later. So, hearts do try to mend themselves, but it is a slow process.

  • This would be really helpful for someone I know. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thealsir ( 927362 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @11:05PM (#15426698) Homepage
    He was born without an aorta, and has had 20+ surgeries, each time replacing the tubes connecting his heart to the rest of his body with longer ones. If a compatible aorta could be grown just with stem cells, he would have no further need for surgery.

    Right now, he is set for a few more years before they have to cut him open again and make adjustments. I hope by then they can just replace the tubes with living tissue and also replace the unsightly scar tissue that has developed from being cut open so many times.

    Let's pray to $DEITY that this gets off the ground. I'm pretty sure it will, mindless theologans aside.

    • Re:This would be really helpful for someone I know (Score:4, Informative)

      by LordLucless ( 582312 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @11:59PM (#15426795)
      Mindless slashdot posters aside too. This involves cardiac stem cells, not embryonic. That means no embryos are destroyed to harvest them, which means no theologans (or even any theologians) are going to be complaining about it. The debate is about embryonic stem cells, not stem cells. Note the emphasis on embryonic. In the future, please keep your flamebait on topic.

      Also, this development would not help your friend. These are cardiac stem cells, so they can only develop into cardiac tissue. The aorta is a blood vessel, and is composed of material very different to the heart. It wouldn't help with the visible scar tissue for the same reason.
      • You assume theologans know and understand the difference. Some do, but a hell of a lot don't. They just hear the word stem cells, remember that their preacher said they were bad, and immediately go off. Its really an amazing brain washing system they have.
      • I say this because I know that there have been efforts to block research on ALL stem cells from ideological grounds, and not just embryonic stem cells. It is the reason why the US lead in stem cell research is shrinking.

        And the cardiac stem cells could be used for other purposes as well eventually. It's funny how your argument contradicts itself, because if it were true, then embryonic stem cells would HAVE to be used for the aorta, making your rebuttal to my argument invalid anyway!
        • Embryonic stem cells would most likely not be useful for regrowing an aorta; at least, if they were, your friend would constantly have to be taking anti-rejection drugs, as they wouldn't be his stem cells used. Embryonic stem cells are mainly being used (AFAIK) to research techniques. It's easier to use embryonic than adult in research. But once the techniques are refined, they'll actually use adult stem cells from the patient, as that would not result in rejection by the body.

          Even if embryonic stem cells
    • I don't know a great deal about genetics, but if the aorta is missing because of a genetic mishap, then wouldn't placing stem cells in place just 'not' make another aorta because that genetic thingy is damaged which builds it?

      Now I'm confused.
    • Also refer to the NIH Hematopoietic Stem Cells [nih.gov]. There's tons of research going on, so tell your friend to hang on...
  • these cardiac stem cells could one day be manipulated to rebuild tissues damaged by heart disease
    Is there some reason these stem cells could only be used to rebuild heart tissue? Why not any other tissue? If there are stem cells scattered throughout the body, what is the motivation for getting them from human embryos?

    • Re:Limited to heart tissue? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The motivation for getting them from human embryos is that the stem cells in embryos have almost limitless potential, whereas the ones in a fully grown body merely can help the area they originate from.

      It also means that you can't retrieve, say, brain stem cells without killing the person first.

      Embryonic stem cells don't have the limits that adult stem cells do, and they are much easier to obtain.

      Would you rather be cut open to get stem cell treatment or merely take some medecine?
      • the stem cells in embryos have almost limitless potential, whereas the ones in a fully grown body merely can help the area they originate from.
        That's what I'm asking. Isn't a stem cell, by definition, an undifferentiated cell that can become anything? How are the heart stem cells impaired?
    • As far as I understand it, embryonic stem cells are totally undifferentiated cells. Adult stem cells are generally somewhat differentiated. Thus you get the stem cells in this article, which are cardiac stem cells. They don't have the potential of embryonic stem cells to grow into anything, but they can still be used to help regrow damaged cardiac cells.

      Of course, when it comes to actual therapy, techniques will have to be developed that rely on adult stem cells. The whole point of stem cell therapy is th

  • Heart Removal... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 29, 2006 @11:09PM (#15426704)
    Oh so that crazy witch-doctor guy in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" wasn't just performing some satanic ritual...he was harvesting stemcells for the benefeit of medical science...how nice of him.

    • Re:Heart Removal... (Score:3, Informative)

      by AuMatar ( 183847 )
      Kali is a Hindu goddess, so he wasn't conducting a satanic ritual at all.
      • Nice point, but to a Christian, Kali IS Satan, or might as well be. They're not very open-minded about those sorts of things.
        • I'm not sure why people groop all christians inot the same catagory of thought. There are only around 200 or more indevidual sects of christian that disagree with each other sect on at least one point.

          Besides, religions gods aren't Satan by default. they may be profits or other whatever and it would be the actions of reguarding them as a god thats against the religion. For some reason, if you whoreship a cow or a pig, it is still a cow or a pig. I don't see any difference with Kali. It would just be a false
    • Same with that girl who dumped you in eighth grade.

  • Migrating (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @11:13PM (#15426712)
    However, they still did not know whether these stem cells actually resided in the heart or had merely migrated there from another tissue, such as bone marrow.

    Well, bone marrow is reponsible for the production of blood cells, so having stem cells migrate into the blood stream and end up in the organ every ounce of one's blood eventually passes through makes sense to me.
  • ...is much better than an owner of a broken heart

    http://www.internetdj.com/watch_video.php?op=watch &mediaid=16787 [internetdj.com]

    Slightly OTT, yes. But you won't be disappointed. Great tune too. Or if you're a closet case 80s fanatic like me [youtube.com].
  • A medical college in Valhalla, I thought they just made plans for Ragnarök and had feasts while getting drunk there.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla [wikipedia.org] ;)

  • Good news for lovers (Score:3, Funny)

    by bakayoko ( 570822 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @11:25PM (#15426738)
    I just shared the news with my roommates, who are going through an awfully difficult break-up.

    They've been so upset for so long, and today when I told them about how their hearts can regenerate, I think I saw hope in their eyes for the first time...

  • What about... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by slocan ( 769303 ) on Monday May 29, 2006 @11:33PM (#15426751)
    preventing heart atacks.

    Curing heart diseases is undoutedly important and necessary, but understanding why and how we have heart diseases could lead to less such diseases in the first place.

    The problem - and not only with heart related diseases - is that there are quite a lot of life-style related causes, isn't it so?

    And changing behaviours (what you eat, how you exercise, how you relate to your fellow human beings etc) is presently more "difficult" (for cultural reasons) than discovering cell manipulation techniques, that is, than intervening (than making a "patch").

    That is the tradition bestowed upon us at least since Francis Bacon: the world, including nature and the human body, are objects which we can manage, alter, change to suit our "needs", to extract profit etc, because we can.

    Instead of adopting a humbler attitude towards life, the universe and everything, trying to live seamlessly with our environment and with each others, we learned to alter the world so that it would adapat to our whims. The eventual errors, mistakes and disasters that follow such courses of action are tackled with further and deeper interventions.

    Is it possible to change centuries of an intervention tradition, to try to understand and adapt to the environment and others, instead of adapting others and the environment to us?

    Am I making any sense?
    • preventing heart atacks... changing behaviours

      But that is a lot of work!

      The easiest way to prevent heart attacks is to pick parents that aren't prone to that issue. Otherwise, if you need your heart fixed, yeah, I'd say patch it up.

    • Bacon... (Score:2, Funny)

      by DAldredge ( 2353 )
      Yum! You said Bacon...

      *Drools*

    • Re:What about... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by John Hasler ( 414242 )
      > Instead of adopting a humbler attitude towards life, the universe and
      > everything, trying to live seamlessly with our environment and with each
      > others, we learned to alter the world so that it would adapat to our whim.

      That's right. Let's all just live in grass huts and eat wild fruit.
      • Just remember there is a vocal subset of the most millitant vegans and animal rights campaigners that will not be happy until man is extinct and the earth is exactly the way it was before monkeys started throwing stones.

    • Re:What about... (Score:1, Informative)

      by slocan ( 769303 )
      What about... * Quitting smoking (Yes, for some it can be extremely hard.); * Eating a healthy diet (Diminishing the fast food ingestion is a good start.); * Controlling your blood sugar (If you have diabetes. And if you don't too, beacause you can acquire diabetes.); * Exercising (A stroll in the park once in a while can be a nice start, and some would say quite enough.); * Controlling weight; * Controlling your blood pressure (if have hypertension is an issue). http://familydoctor.org/291.xml#4 [familydoctor.org] *

    • Re:What about... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 ) * on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @12:42AM (#15426855) Homepage Journal
      You know what? People should be able to smoke. And drink. And use whatever other drugs they want. And eat crappy food. And not exercise unless they enjoy it. And have sex with as many partners as they please. And do all the other currently life-shortening things they enjoy, and not have it be a death sentence. Keeping people alive after a lifetime of doing the things that make them happy is one of the noblest goals of science.

      No, I'm not kidding.
      • Lol, Daniel. I agree with you 100%. Of course we could all live longer if lived like strict Mormons, but there's more to life than prolonging it. I say live as fully as you can, and there's nothing wrong with turning to medical science when you have a problem.
      • It sounds great on paper, but think about it. If you could drink without any healthy worried at all then becoming addicted to the stuff is so much easier. You may not kill yourself through drink, but you may well die in a car crash or wreck your life by waking up and needing a bottle of vodka.

        People forget life has natural "warning" signs in things. When science side steps these warnings/problems, new ones arise which are more "DONT FUCK WITH ME!" rather than "hey, you can't even stand, you shouldn't of gon

      • Re:What about... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by TheLink ( 130905 )
        "Keeping people alive _after_ a lifetime of doing the things that make them happy is one of the noblest goals of science."
        (emphasis mine).

        Whoa there... I think people would rather not be kept alive for too long after their lifetime of doing the happy stuff...

        Seriously though: a big problem is who pays for it.

        Seems like we're heading to a future where repairing people will be increasingly be limited by money (resouces) than by medical technology. Not sure when we'd ever be able to afford to pay to repair eve

    • Re:What about... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by chudnall ( 514856 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @01:53AM (#15426955) Homepage Journal
      For some, heart disease is a lifestyle issue. Then there's people like me. Every single male person (that I know) on my father's side of the family has had heart attacks and subsequent bypass, many at a relatively early age. My dad had his emergency quintuple bypass at 43. His veins were already in such bad shape, that they had to cut all the way down both legs to harvest enough suitable segments. He was not overweight and exercised regularly. Needless to say, I try to practice a very heart-healthy lifestyle. I don't really have much reason to believe it will do a lot of good, though.If I follow my family history, I'll have my first heart attack in about 10 years, Get bypass surgery, be in the hospital about every 10 years after that, and finally die (if I'm lucky) of a massive stroke. Lifestyle changes haven't helped anyone in my family. So I welcome any new scientific advances in this area.

    • touche (Score:3, Insightful)

      by porkThreeWays ( 895269 )
      You do have an extremely valid point. Many will probably poo-poo your thoughts, however (which is sad).

      We live in a society in which we really don't respect what fragile gifts our bodies are. The mantra seems to be "you could be hit by a bus tomorrow so live it up!!". While it is true that at any time your body can cease to function for a myriad of reasons, chances are you are going to live to see 60. What then? Living an entire life smoking, eating like a slob, and sitting on the couch will have taken a
    • And changing behaviours (what you eat, how you exercise, how you relate to your fellow human beings etc) is presently more "difficult" (for cultural reasons) than discovering cell manipulation techniques, that is, than intervening (than making a "patch").
      Hmm, another important factor would be that farmaceutical companies can't make any money off of 'changing behaviours' whereas by selling pills they make a killing....
    • Am I making any sense?

      Yes, yes you are. You're saying the individual is worthless and we should let genetics run its course.

      Sorry, I'm the most important thing in my world and if I need stem cells in order to not die, I'm going after them.

    • Around 40 - 50% [open-heart.net] of cardiac transplants are performed to fix damage caused by cardiomyopathy [americanheart.org], which usually originates from a virus, and is not related to lifestyle.

      Similarly, some heart illnesses are hereditary, and not preventable by reducing fat, stress, etc.

      Prevention, where available, is certainly better than cure, but let's be careful not to accuse all patients with cardiac damage of causing the damage themselves through bad choices.

  • Great news (Score:5, Funny)

    by I Like Pudding ( 323363 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @12:13AM (#15426813)
    I've always believed that eating the heart of a fallen enemy would give me his courage. Getting his stem cells to boot is a totally unexpected bonus.

    • Re:Great news (Score:3, Funny)

      by Thing 1 ( 178996 )
      I've always believed that eating the heart of a fallen enemy would give me his courage.

      That's really weird thinking, there. "I want to be more like this fool who rushed into my sword?"

  • Take that, GWB (Score:1, Insightful)

    by melted ( 227442 )
    Those damned stem cells have infiltrated you from within.
  • heart disease, high blood pressure, and cancer.
  • So now it will be relatively easy to imitate Dr Who's regeneration ability. Remember the Doctor has two hearts, too, so we could grow an extra heart also. Hmmm...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lJUdZqoOdU [youtube.com]

  • fuck, there goes the dead fetus market.

  • Niche (Score:3, Funny)

    by Flyboy Connor ( 741764 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @06:14AM (#15427297)
    "Stem Cells of the Heart"

    A chick flick aimed at cardiologists.

  • Don't know about regeneration, but usually there is heavy scarring.
  • But we've been doing adult stem cell therapy to treat previously untreatable heart desease in Thailand for a couple of years already. It isn't approved yet in the U.S. so people come here to do it, including some famous people (sort of), like Don Ho (story http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/23/D8ELPR3G8 .html [breitbart.com])
  • Oh, no! This means that the Bush Administration will soon outlaw owning a heart! At least, one funded by taxpayers.
  • Now I can't get that Deee-Lite song out of my head.

    "Stem cells in the heaaaaeaaaaaaaeaeaeaaaaaaart"
  • but, the thing I do find very interesting about the heart is that it performs bypasses on itself. Lets say you have a pretty much blocked artery - your heart will know this and actually start making a new artery to the deO2'ed affected part. Pretty neat if you ask me... I can't wonder if these 'stem' cells have anything at all to do with it, but you never know I guess.

    The only thing we have now is, "Which do we kill for stem cells... the old fuckers like myself (jk) or the unborn"

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