Two immune responses are important for recovery after a heart attack — an acute inflammatory response that attracts leukocyte immune cells to remove dead tissue, followed by a resolving response that allows healing.
Two immune responses are important for recovery after a heart attack — an acute inflammatory response that attracts leukocyte immune cells to remove dead tissue, followed by a resolving response that allows healing.
Failure of the resolving response can allow a persistent, low-grade nonresolving inflammation, which can lead to progressive acute or chronic heart failure. Despite medical advances, 2 to 17 percent of patients die within one year after a heart attack due to failure to resolve inflammation. More than 50 percent die within five years.
Using a mouse heart attack model, Ganesh Halade, Ph.D., and his University of Alabama at Birmingham colleagues have shown that knocking out one particular lipid-modifying enzyme, along with a short-term dietary excess of a certain lipid, can improve post-heart attack healing and clear inflammation. Halade, an assistant professor in the UAB Department of Medicine, hopes that future physicians will be able to use knowledge from studies like his to boost healing in patients after heart attacks and prevent heart failure.
Read more at University of Alabama at Birmingham
Image: Ganesh Halade is pictured. (Credit: UAB)
