A hormone that helps keep our bones strong could be a powerful new treatment for atrial fibrillation (AF), the UK’s most common heart rhythm disorder, researchers from the University of Oxford said in November.
In the 1.4 million Britons with AF, the electrical impulses in the heart’s upper chambers (atria) have gone haywire as a result of scarring to the heart tissue (typically due to ageing, high blood pressure or heart disease). This leads to an irregular or ‘fluttering’ heartbeat which increases the risk of a stroke five-fold, as it means blood can pool in the heart.
Current treatments work by restoring the natural rhythm by, for example, shocking it back into step; or by cutting the risk of a stroke with the use of blood-thinning drugs. But they do not work for everyone and none address the atrial scarring that is at the root of the condition.
According to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), better treatment could prevent 7,000 strokes and save over 2,000 lives a year in England alone.
A hormone that helps keep our bones strong could be a powerful new treatment for atrial fibrillation (AF), the UK’s most common heart rhythm disorder, researchers from the University of Oxford said in November+5
A hormone that helps keep our bones strong could be a powerful new treatment for atrial fibrillation (AF), the UK’s most common heart rhythm disorder, researchers from the University of Oxford said in November
Now, experiments on mice and cells from heart patients, reported in the journal Nature, show that calcitonin, a bone hormone that was thought to be produced only by the thyroid gland, is also made by cells in the atria. And this research, part-funded by the British Heart Foundation, also found that higher levels reduced scarring and even prevented AF.
‘The most severe risk with AF is that it predisposes to blood clots forming in the heart that can dislodge to cause stroke, which often requires patients to take lifelong blood-thinning drugs that themselves can cause problems such as bleeding,’ says Tim Chico, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Sheffield.
‘Any treatment that could prevent or reverse someone’s tendency to have AF would be a major breakthrough.’
Avoiding permanent atrial fibrillation: treatment approaches to prevent disease progression.
