Snake oil employed to treat heart disease

MAYBE there's something to snake oil after all. A mix of compounds called fatty acids identified in pythons can spur an exercise-like boost in the size of mouse hearts.In a test of basic biology, the three fatty acids identified in the blood of Burmese pythons boosted the mass of a heart chamber in lab mice by 10 per cent in just a week, researchers report in the October 28 Science. The snakes naturally enlarge their own hearts by some 40 per cent in two to three days after eating one of their huge but rare meals. Between meals, python hearts and many other organs shrivel again.Enlarging heart tissue can be a danger sign for humans. Yet the growth seen in the mice looks more like an athlete's healthful heart growth than a heart disease patient's worrisome one, says research leader Leslie A. Leinwand of the University of Colorado Boulder. 'We used the extreme biology of a snake to create a beneficial type of cardiac enlargement in mammals,' she says.Mice, unlike pythons, nibble food steadily and thus shouldn't need sudden heart growth to cope with huge, rare feasts, says Gerald Dorn of Washington University Medical School in St. Louis, a cardiologist who studies the molecular processes of heart enlargement. So the mouse response in the new study suggests that the research team has uncovered some central stimulating factor common across species, Dorn says. The study is 'incredibly promising,' he says.Leinwand and her colleagues had hoped their snake research would reveal clues to possible medical therapies for people with heart disease. However, many questions remain about how the snakes' fatty acids actually work to trigger heart muscle cells to bulge. Seeing if they lead to therapies 'will take a very long time,' she cautions.
Click here to read full news..