Ancient Heart Disease

Modern CT scans of a variety of mummies from Egypt, Peru, the southwestern United States and the Aleutian Islands revealed about a third suffered from calcification of carotid arteries, demonstrating that age-related heart disease may have been common in ancient peoples even without the modern diet and lifestyle often cited as a contributing factor.

Snake Blood Makes Heart Grow

With the hearts of some species of snakes nearly doubling in size in response to blood demand, researchers have discovered blood plasma from recently fed snakes can stimulate mammal hearts to grow without scarring, leading to potential medical treatments for human heart disease.

Stem Cells Repair Heart

Researchers have found that a protein called called thymosin β4 (Tβ4) can activate stem cells in the hearts of mice to begin producing new muscle cells and growing new arteries in damaged hearts.