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A Hearty Life

Heart Condition Saturday: Enlarged Hearts

by Hsien-Hsien Lei, PhD on June 3rd, 2006

Enlarged hearts may be due to a number of factors but it is critically important what type of stress causes a heart to become enlarged. In a study of mice, researchers found that those with induced high blood pressure (pathological stress) which led to an enlarged heart showed significant structural and cellular abnormalities. But mice which developed an enlarged heart from swimming or running in the wheel were perfectly healthy.


Dr. Howard Rockman, a cardiologist at Duke University Medical Center:

The heart is more sophisticated than we thought. The type of stress you apply on the heart determines whether it’s going to develop a deleterious phenotype or whether it’s going to be an adaptive and beneficial phenotype.

For more, see the American Heart Association.

Forbes.com, June 2, 2006

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POSTED IN: Heart Conditions

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