The study, published in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research, showed that the heart muscle´s inability to regenerate after a heart attack is allegedly due, at least in part, to a class of steroid hormones, glucocorticoids, pushing heart muscle cells to mature after birth, while blocking their proliferation.

“Our results show that glucocorticoids act as an important brake on cardiac regenerative capacity: their inhibition showed promising results in the repair of damaged cardiac tissue,” explains Gabriele D’Uva, professor at the Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine at the University of Bologna, who coordinated the study.

Most of the tissues of the human body are renewed throughout life, but in the case of heart, this capacity is very low in adulthood.

This led to the hypothesis that glucocorticoids may be responsible for the maturation of cardiac muscle cells, to the detriment of their replicative and regenerative capacity: This idea has now been demonstrated in the animal model using sophisticated molecular biology techniques.

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