Originally published July 20 2005
Gene therapy could lead to better treatment for chronic heart disease
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
In clinical trials on the use of stem cells in treating chronic heart failure by growing new tissue in hearts, patients later developed potentially deadly arrhythmia, however, researchers now hope that through the use of gene therapy, they alter adult stem cells to make them produce the protein conniving 43, which could help patients maintain a healthy heart rhythm.
A possible treatment for chronic heart failure is sometimes worse than the problem it is trying to correct.
However, researchers believe they have come up with a way to make adult stem cell therapy for heart attack survivors a more successful option.
A heart attack causes damage to the tissue of the heart.
Re-growing the tissue can reverse problems like chronic heart failure, which can lead to death.
Two clinical trials in 2002 used adult stem cells to grow new tissue in hearts.
However, 11 of 18 patients later developed potentially deadly rhythm disturbances.
Heart specialists at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore discovered the reason behind the rhythm problems is a missing protein in the re-grown heart tissue.
Connexin 43 acts as an electrical connector between heart cells, allowing the cells to communicate and synchronize their movements.
Using gene therapy, the researchers were able to get the adult stem cells, called myoblasts, to produce connexin 43.
Adult stem cells come from the patient's own healthy skeletal muscle.
Once harvested, the cells are injected directly into damaged heart muscle where they will grow into new tissue.
To create stem cells that would not cause an irregular heart rhythm, scientists injected them with a virus carrying the connexin 43 gene.
The stem cells, which could then create their own connexin 43, grew heart tissue that could maintain a healthy heart rhythm.
The experiment was conducted in the lab on heart cells from rats.
Researchers say with these findings, they can now explain why stem cell therapy on hearts is not always successful and have a lead on a way to make the therapy more successful.
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