Improved cardiac output Exercise tablets have similar effects to sports

New drug could help especially people with right heart failure
In a so-called heart failure, the heart does not supply the organism with enough oxygen. Researchers have now developed a pill that achieves the benefits of exercise. Such a drug could help many people with a so-called right heart failure, which was previously difficult to treat.

The treatment options for patients with right heart failure are currently extremely limited. The scientists from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute now developed a kind of training pill. The drug has similar benefits to physical exercises and exercise and appears to be effective in treating right heart failure. The physicians published the results of their study in the journal "Cell Research".

New pill can produce sport effect (Image: kieferpix / fotolia.com)

More and more cases of right heart failure
When lay people think of heart failure, they generally refer to the failure of the muscles on the left side of the heart. Lynn Megeney from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. But over the last decade, we've seen about 50 percent of heart failure cases with a weakness on the right side of the heart, the expert adds.

There have been few options for treating right heart failure in the past
So far, the chances of successful treatment in patients with right heart failure were very low. These patients really do not have any options regarding effective pharmacological intervention or therapy, physicians explain.

Cardiotrophin-1 is produced during pregnancy and during training
The researchers at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute found that a particular protein could help people with right heart failure. This protein is produced by the body during exercise and during pregnancy. When the protein called cardiotrophin-1 was given to animals with a diseased heart, these hearts grew to a healthy size. "We found that this protein triggers some type of cardiac growth, which is usually associated with exercise," Dr. Megeney.

Pill signals the heart sport activity
The pill shows the heart that we are doing some exercise. Through this effect, the pill can be used to strengthen weaker hearts. So the heart can grow and pump more blood through our body. This replicates what happens during exercise, jogging or cycling.

CT1 grows heart muscle and stimulates blood vessel growth
When part of the heart dies, the remaining muscles try to adapt to the situation by getting bigger. But this happens in a dysfunctional way and it does not help the heart to pump more blood through the body, the experts say. "We found that CT1 makes the heart muscle grow in a healthy way and also stimulates blood vessel growth in the heart," says author Dr. Megeney. However, it is not clear at this early stage of research how often CT1 must be taken to achieve a desired effect. (As)