Living with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy can be challenging because the disease changes the structure of the heart over time.
The heart muscle becomes unusually thick, making it more difficult for the heart to pump blood efficiently.
While some people remain symptom-free, others struggle with breathlessness, tiredness, chest discomfort, or fainting episodes that interfere with everyday life.
Scientists have been trying to develop treatments that do more than simply relieve symptoms. Their goal is to slow down or reverse the changes inside the heart muscle.
A new clinical trial suggests that a medicine called trientine may help move treatment closer to that goal.
The study was carried out by researchers at The University of Manchester and published in the European Heart Journal. In the TEMPEST trial, 154 adults with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy were randomly assigned to receive either trientine or an inactive placebo for one year.
This type of study design is considered one of the best ways to test whether a treatment truly works.
By the end of the trial, patients receiving trientine had less heart muscle thickening than those receiving the placebo. The greatest benefit was seen in people whose disease was more advanced at the start of the study. Researchers also found that most participants tolerated the medicine well, with relatively few side effects.
One reason this discovery is exciting is that trientine has already been used in medicine for decades. It was originally developed to treat Wilson disease, a rare condition involving abnormal copper metabolism. Because its safety profile is already well understood, researchers can focus on learning whether it is effective for heart disease.
Copper plays many important roles in the body. Heart cells need it to produce energy and protect themselves from damage. When copper is not properly balanced, the heart may produce less energy, become thicker, and develop more scar tissue.
Trientine appears to improve how copper is handled inside and outside heart cells. Laboratory studies in animals have shown that it can improve heart cell function while reducing thickening and scarring. Earlier research in people with diabetes-related heart disease also produced encouraging results.
The latest findings suggest that controlling copper may represent an entirely new way to treat hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. According to first author Dr. John Farrant, this is the first strong evidence that targeting copper could open a new direction for treating patients with this condition.
Even with these promising findings, researchers caution that the work is still at an early stage. Larger clinical trials involving more patients and longer follow-up will be needed before doctors know whether trientine can reduce hospital admissions, prevent dangerous heart rhythms, or help people live longer.
This study is an important step because it explores the underlying biology of the disease instead of only treating symptoms.
Although the results should be interpreted carefully until larger studies are completed, they provide genuine hope that an existing medicine could become a valuable treatment for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and possibly other diseases that cause abnormal heart muscle thickening.
If you care about heart disease, please read studies that herbal supplements could harm your heart rhythm, and how eating eggs can help reduce heart disease risk.
For more health information, please see recent studies that apple juice could benefit your heart health, and results showing yogurt may help lower the death risks in heart disease.
Source: The University of Manchester.
