Heart failure is the inability of the heart to pump blood efficiently. Current treatment help slow down or stop the disease from getting worse; but they can't revert it.
Presently, scientists have produced a drug that can restrain heart failure and also enhance the heart's blood pumping ability.
The new drug has been named "SAMBA" (meaning, Selective Antagonist of Mitofusin 1- B2PK Association) by the researchers in Brazil and the United States who invented and tested the drug.
The Journal Nature Communications has recently published a paper that explains how the researchers developed SAMBA and tested it on rodents models of heart failure.
"The drug in current use halt the progression of the disease but never reverted it, says first study author, Julio C.B. Ferreira, who is a professor in the Biomedical Science Institute at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
When the drug was given to rats with heart failure, the drug not only stop the disease from progressing but also reduced its complication by enhancing the ability of the heart muscle to contrast.
SAMBA works by stopping a specific reaction between the proteins mitofusin 1 (MFn1) and beta 11 protein kinase C (B2PKC) whose association impairs mitochondria in the heart muscle cells, causing the cells to die.
However, in a statement, professor Ferreira said, "we showed that by regulating this specific reaction, we could both halt the progression and make the disease regress to a less severe stage."
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