Researchers Find Potential Key To Preventing Heart Attack Damage

A new discovery may lead to interventions that prevent the death of cardiac and brain tissue linked to heart attack and stroke, researchers report. Investigators say they've discovered a critical mechanism key to heart attack-linked cell death, and they say a drug already exists to block this mechanism. That drug, cyclosporin, is an immunosuppressant often used in patients undergoing organ transplants. "We found a protein that explains a way in which cells die," said Jeff Molkentin, senior author of the report and associate professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. The protein, called cyclophilin D, "is the target for cyclosporin," he said. "It could mean another way to treat people after a heart attack." "In heart attack and stroke, the treatment objective is to minimize a person's disability by saving as much heart muscle or brain tissue as possible," added Dr. David A. Meyerson, a cardiologist with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a national spokesman for the American Heart Association. "This preliminary study suggests that treatment with new medication may be able to lessen the damage to brain cells and heart muscle while we are trying to restore blood flow in someone who is having a stroke or heart attack, " Myerson added. "It is preliminary and it will have to be tried in humans, but it is intriguing." The findings are published in the March 31 issue of the journal Nature.