A new study from the University of Pennsylvania has found that a thicker right side of the heart may be linked to a higher chance of heart failure and death—even in people who seem healthy and show no signs of heart disease.
The research was done by scientists at the Perelman School of Medicine and published in the journal Circulation.
When doctors look at the heart, they usually focus on the left ventricle. This is the part of the heart that pumps blood to the rest of the body and is often affected by high blood pressure and other common health problems. But in this new study, researchers turned their attention to the right ventricle, which sends blood to the lungs.
Dr. Steven Kawut, one of the study authors, says the right side of the heart may play a more important role in heart health than many people thought. He explains that while most research has focused on the left ventricle, the right ventricle is also important—especially when it becomes thicker than normal.
To understand the risks, the research team looked at heart scans from over 4,100 people who took part in a larger project called the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, or MESA. These participants had no signs of heart disease when they joined the study.
The average age was 61, and the group included people from many backgrounds, including Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic, and Chinese-American.
The team used a special type of scan called cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) to look at the thickness of the right ventricle in each person’s heart.
They found that people who had thickened right ventricles—something called RV hypertrophy—had twice the risk of developing heart failure or dying from heart-related causes compared to those with normal right ventricles.
This increased risk remained even after accounting for other factors like age, gender, body size, smoking, education, and other health signs. In fact, the link between thickened right ventricles and heart problems was even stronger in people who had normal or lower-than-average thickness in their left ventricle.
This means that even if the left side of the heart looks healthy, the right side might still be hiding serious problems.
Dr. Kawut believes this discovery challenges the old idea that the right side of the heart is not important in healthy adults. He says that about one in ten cases of heart failure or death may be related to thickening of the right ventricle—even in people who don’t have any known heart disease.
The researchers plan to keep studying the same group of people by looking at new heart scans taken 10 years later. They want to understand how the right ventricle changes over time and how these changes affect a person’s health, energy levels, and survival.
This study shows that doctors may need to pay more attention to the right side of the heart when trying to predict or prevent heart problems. It also highlights the value of using advanced heart imaging to catch early signs of risk, even in people who don’t show any symptoms.
If you care about heart health, please read studies that yogurt may help lower the death risks in heart disease, and coconut sugar could help reduce artery stiffness.
For more information about health, please see recent studies that Vitamin D deficiency can increase heart disease risk, and results showing vitamin B6 linked to lower death risk in heart disease.
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