The Heart is a Strange Sort of Organ

We examined the heart tissue from 29 deceased individuals of various ages and found that even by one month after birth, the heart contains the same number of cells as it has in adults." According to the study, the heart grows during childhood because its cells increase in size rather than in number; in other words, heart cells are generated on only a modest scale, and even during a long life, only forty per cent of muscle cells are replaced. "Our findings suggest that it can be rational and realistic to develop new therapeutic strategies for strengthening the body's own regenerative capacity to treat heart diseases." Telocytes and putative stem cells in ageing human heart Tradition considers that mammalian heart consists of about 70% non-myocytes (interstitial cells) and 30% cardiomyocytes. The presence of telocytes has been overlooked, since they were described in 2010. Also, the number of cardiac stem cells has not accurately estimated in humans during ageing. We used electron microscopy to identify and estimate the number of cells in human atrial myocardium. Three age-related groups were studied: newborns (17 days - 1 year), children (6-17 years) and adults (34-60 years). We found that interstitial area gradually increases with age from 31.3 ± 4.9% in newborns to 41 ± 5.2% in adults. Also, the number of blood capillaries (per mm2) increased with several hundreds in children and adults versus newborns. Cardiomyocytes are the most numerous cells, representing 76% in ne...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs