Heart Block Treatment In India : What to Expect?

Facts about the heart block

Heart block indicates the disruption of the electrical pulses that control the heart rate. This condition is a type of arrhythmia, which causes the heart to beat more slowly. There are three types of heart block: first degree heart block, second degree heart block and third degree heart block.

Symptoms

The most common symptoms of a heart block include:

• Fainting
• Feeling short of breath
• Palpitations

Causes

Some people are born with a heart block and this condition is called as a congenital heart disease. This can be caused due to a genetic condition or congenital heart defect. Often the heart block occurs in later life and the most common causes include: heart attack, certain medications, infections like diphtheria and having open heart surgery.

Heart Treatment hypothesis revealed

Researchers have long reason to hope that blocking the calcium flow into the mitochondria of the heart and brain cells could be a way to prevent damage caused by strokes and heart attacks. In a recent study of mice engineered such that it lacked a key calcium channel in their heart cells. However, the scientists at Johns Hopkins have cast a shadow of doubt on this theory. They published a study “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” online this week.

A senior investigator Mark Anderson, M.D, Ph.D, director of the Department of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine confirmed that the calcium channel is indeed important for proper heart functioning. However, the results showed that this is definitely not a good pathway to exploit a long-term therapy, at least for heart attacks.

The experiment conducted by Anderson and his team was a result of increased understanding about the role of calcium in heart function. The calcium molecules whiz in and out of the tiny compartments called as mitochondira with each beat of the heart. The mitochondira is the powerhouse of the heart and other cells, the calcium help to generate the energy for cells to stay alive. But for many years, the researchers also know that excess of mitochondria calcium can overwhelm and cause the cells to die. Post a stroke or a heart attack, the sudden rush of calcium in the organelles sets off the cell death pathway.

According to Anderson, the possibility to save the heart and brain cells by blocking the influx of the calcium is a hope. A few years ago, the scientists have discovered the specific channel called as mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU) that allows the calcium to pass in and out of the mitochondria.
With this new knowledge, Anderson and colleagues have set to test the effects of blocking calcium from mitochondria by blocking the calcium from mitochondria with genetically altered mice with a mutation that disable the function of heart MCU. This also blocked the calcium flow to the mitochondria in the heart muscle cells of the mice for the entire lifetime.

About Company

India Cardiac Surgery Site is a global medical company that offers quality medical care and treatment in India. The heart block treatments are performed by qualified and well-trained cardiac surgeons in India. Comparing the cost for heart block treatment in western countries, India offers a cost-effective treatment package for patients suffering from heart block.

References

• Valentin Fuster, R. Wayne Alexander, Robert A. O'Rourke, Robert Roberts, et al. (November 2000). Hurst's The Heart, 10th Edition. McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing. Figure 24–60b.
• Heart treatment hypothesis busted as in “http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-07-heart-treatment-hypothesis.html”
• Heart block retrieved on 7-July-2015. http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Heart-block/Pages/Introduction.aspx 

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