Failing Hearts

Cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart muscle brought on by factors such as obesity, high-blood pressure and diabetes. These conditions add extra pressure onto the heart muscles, and so they can become weaker. In dilated cardiomyopathy, the heart muscle of the left ventricle (the heart’s main pump) is affected in this way, meaning that blood isn’t pumped around the body as effectively as it should be. Pictured are sections of a mouse heart, with normal appearance on the left-hand side. The section on the right is from a failing heart, identifiable by the larger overall size of the heart and thinner muscle. It seems that the transition from an enlarged heart to heart failure occurs following a genetic ‘switch’, changing molecules in the heart cells that trigger a series of events which lead to declining heart function and eventual failure.

Written by Katie Panteli

Katie Panteli

Writer

Katie, a Warwick Biomed graduate, works for a science-publishing house in London with some of the world's most respected scientific minds. She's most interested in human biology, anything and everything that makes us tick.

• Photo courtesy of the Grueter laboratory, University of Iowa Health Care
• Dept of Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Division, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in JCI Insight, August 2017