In a new study from Monash University, researchers found a way to prevent and reverse damage caused by broken-heart syndrome, also known as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy.
They showed the cardio-protective benefit of a drug called Suberanilohydroxamic acid, or SAHA, dramatically improved cardiac health and reversed the broken-heart.
SAHA, currently used for cancer treatment, is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
It works by providing a protective benefit to genes and in particular the acetylation/deacetylation (Ac/Dc) index, an important process that regulates gene expression.
Broken-heart syndrome is a weakening of the left ventricle, the heart’s main pumping chamber and is brought on by stressful emotional triggers often following traumatic events such as the death of a loved one or a family separation.
This condition mimics a heart attack with chest pain, shortness of breath and irregular heartbeat.
In western countries there is a clear, uneven distribution among patients with Takotsubo—the condition occurs almost exclusively in older women.
While the main symptoms are chest pain and shortness of breath, the precise cause isn’t known.
Experts think that surging stress hormones essentially flood the heart, triggering changes in heart muscle cells or coronary blood vessels (or both) that prevent the left ventricle from contracting effectively.
This causes the heavy-achy-feeling you get in the chest which can be mistaken as a heart attack.
The current study showed for the first time a drug that shows preventative and therapeutic benefit is important to a healthy heart.
The drug not only slows cardiac injury but also reverses, the damage caused to the stressed heart.
The findings showed a new standard in preventative and therapeutic potential using a cardioprotective drug that targets genes in the heart.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about common heartburn drugs linked to heart and kidney disease, stomach cancer and findings of two common dietary supplements may protect against heart disease, stroke.
For more information about heart disease prevention and treatment, please see recent studies about this health problem in middle-age may predict heart failure later in life and results showing that this number, not BMI, linked to heart disease in people with diabetes.
The study is published in Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy. One author of the study is Professor Sam El-Osta.
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