According to an article that was published in The Daily Telegraph, a team of scientists have discovered a gene that “could rejuvenate old hearts”. This concept seems to be quite strange, so it’s no surprise that it has been controversial. But is The Daily Telegraph’s reporting correct or has it just been blown out of proportion?
The newspaper went on to suggest that “damaged hearts could be regenerated simply by switching off a gene which prevents cells from dividing”. There are some parts of our body, such as our skin, that are made up of cells that divide and reproduce throughout our lives to produce new tissue. This is known as mitosis. But there are other parts, like the heart, are thought to lose this ability shortly after birth. This much we know is true.
The Telegraph story was based on the new research in mice that has identified a specific gene called Meis1 that seems to block the heart tissue’s ability to regenerate itself. The eventual hope from the authors of the study is that similar techniques might eventually be used in humans to repair damage to the heart that can occur in cases of heart failure.
However, it just isn’t going to be that simple. Switching off a gene to treat a progressive disease like heart failure is unlikely to work quite as easily as the Daily Telegraph would have it seem. It is obvious that far more research is needed before we will see anything ground-breaking that could provide new treatment capable of healing ‘broken hearts’.
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