The discovery is of tremendous importance as it opens doors to treatments that could replace damaged heart tissue with new cells.

 

The study was the work of researchers at the Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm, Sweden led by Professor Jonas Frisen. Their findings make use of the fact that carbon 14, which is often used to tell the age of fossils, increased dramatically in the atmosphere after nuclear weapons began to be tested during the Cold War.

 

The Cold War tests took place in 1963, increasing the presence of the radioactive isotope carbon 14 in the atmosphere, and hence in people’s bodies.

 

The researchers examined cadavers for carbon 14 and found that heart muscle cells regenerate over a person’s lifespan. The cells regrow at an annual rate of 1 percent at age 25, slowing to about 0.45 percent by age 75, the new study says.

 

That means that better treatment for heart attacks may soon be on the way, helping million of people worldwide suffering from this life-threatening condition.

 

“The loss of heart cells after, say, a heart attack often leads to impaired cardiac function. This new finding that heart cells can be replaced motivates further research into ways of stimulating the renewal mechanism to replace the cells that have been lost,” Professor Frisén said.