Regeneration of Heart Muscle Cells
Until recently, it was commonly believed that cardiac muscle cells could not be regenerated. However, a study reported in the April 3, 2009 issue of Science contradicts that belief. Olaf Bergmann and his colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm tested samples of heart muscle from people born before 1955 when nuclear bomb testing caused elevated levels of radioactive carbon 14 in the Earth's atmosphere. They found that samples from people born before 1955 did have elevated carbon 14 in their heart muscle cell DNA, indicating that the cells had divided after the person's birth. By using DNA samples from many hearts, the researchers estimated that a 20-year-old renews about 1% of heart muscle cells per year and about 45 percent of the heart muscle cells of a 50-year-old were generated after he or she was born.
Read more about this topic: Cardiac Muscle
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