Imagine a substance your doctor could inject directly into your heart soon after you have a heart attack that will prevent and/or repair some of the damage that heart attacks usually involve? AND thus possibly prevent you from developing heart failure as a result of the attack?
Yep. They’ve done it in a recent study with 40 patients in Japan – half got a protein drip called G-CSF and the rest a saline solution (placebo).
…researchers from the Gunma Prefectural Cardiovascular Center in Maebashi, Japan, have found that a protein called G-CSF—when injected into the hearts of patients who recently suffered an attack—can actually spur a type of bone marrow stem cells to migrate to the heart and curb the spread of cellular death that normally takes place.
Clinical trials are in the works to confirm these dramatic preliminary promises.
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