Pill that can trick your heart into fixing itself
By FIONA MACRAE | Mail OnLine


A pill that allows damaged hearts to repair themselves could be available in as little as seven years, potentially revolutionising the lives of millions.

The medication would trick the organ into healing itself, making recovery from a heart attack as simple as mending a broken leg.

Other options being pursued by the British Heart Foundation, as part of a multi-million-pound research project, include readymade ‘patches’ of healthy heart tissue and injections of stem cells to the heart.

It is hoped that one of the treatments – or a combination of them – will greatly improve quality of life for the millions whose hearts have been seriously weakened by having a heart attack.

More than 750,000 people live with heart failure in the UK alone, with everyday tasks such as eating, dressing even getting out of bed, leaving many breathless and exhausted.

Treatments range from drugs to transplants but with up to 40 per cent of those affected dying within a year of diagnosis, heart failure has worse survival rate than many cancers.

And with the number of sufferers soaring as we become better at treating heart attacks and as the population ages, there is an urgent need for better treatments.

Professor Peter Weissberg, the British Heart Foundation’s medical director, said that a pill that triggers the heart into repairing the damage would be the ‘holy grail’.

He added: ‘Since the BHF's inception 50 years ago, we've made great strides in medical research to better diagnose and treat people with all kinds of heart problems.

‘But the biggest issue that still eludes us is how to help people once their heart has been damaged by a heart attack.

‘Scientifically, mending human hearts is an achievable goal and we really could make recovering from a heart attack as simple as getting over a broken leg.

‘We are not trying to palliate the condition, which is what we have been very good at over the years, we are trying to regenerate and repair tissue.’

The charity wants to raise £50million over the next five years to research the topic.

Part of its scientists’ inspiration comes from nature, with some animals, including the zebrafish being able to regrow portions of their own hearts.

Unlocking the tropical fish’s secret could allow people to do the same thing.

Key to the success of the Mending Broken Hearts project will finding ways of awakening pockets of stem cells that pepper the human heart and triggering them into turning into heart muscle and blood vessels.

Researchers from Imperial College London have already found one drug that does this but believe that much more potent mixtures exist.

The idea of using stem cells to strengthen ailing hearts is not new but most research until now has focussed on using cells from other parts of the body such as the bone marrow. The BHF believes that using the heart’s own cells will give the best result.

If all goes well, small numbers of heart failure patients could be treated within five years and a drug, jab or patch in widespread use shortly afterwards.

Professor Weissberg said such as treatment could ‘revolutionise’ the lives of heart failure patients, in the same way as a heart transplant gives the seriously ill a new lease of life, even allowing some to run marathons.

Joanne Ward, 36, from Sheffield, who suffered a heart attack shortly after giving birth to her second son Tyler five years ago, is helping to promote the appeal.

She said: ‘Living with heart failure means everything from doing the washing to playing silly games with my sons requires a huge amount of effort, and sometimes they're just too hard to do.

‘The fact my heart won't heal can be overwhelming but I refuse to let heart failure define me.

‘A research breakthrough could make a massive difference to people like me, so there is always hope.’