Monday, September 12, 2011

Bone And Cartilage Growth To Blame For Heart Valve Disease

Source: Northwestern Memorial Hospital
http://www.nmh.org

Research to be published in the April 18 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology provides the first explanation of an active rather than passive process that leads to heart valve degeneration, furthering a Northwestern researcher's effort to lead a paradigm shift in the medical community's beliefs about the cause of valve disease.
Heart valve disease is caused not by a 'wear and tear' phenomenon, but by an inflammatory process likely triggered by high cholesterol that stimulates certain cells to reprogram into bone cells in the aortic valve and cartilage cells in the mitral valve, says principal investigator Nalini Rajamannan, MD, newly appointed director of the Center for Heart Valve Disease in the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute of Northwestern Memorial Hospital and assistant professor of medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who examined diseased mitral and aortic valves removed during surgery for the study. Read more...

Cardiofy Heart Care Supplement

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