[ad_1]
A lung drug that has been used in the fight against Covid may soon improve the health of patients with debilitating heart failure.
The drug, pirfenidone, was originally developed to treat breathing problems caused by a buildup of scar tissue inside the lungs – known as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that killed the star of the Keith Chegwin television in 2017.
More recently, the tablets have been given to patients whose lungs are severely scarred from Covid infection.
Today, pirfenidone shows promise in the treatment of one of the most common types of heart failure, an incurable health problem that affects around one million Britons.
Pirfenidone shows promise in the treatment of one of the most common types of heart failure, an incurable health problem that affects around one million Britons
Strange sciences
A diabetic’s urine is sweet enough to make whiskey, according to a strange experiment.
Design student James Gilpin, who has type 1 diabetes, came up with the idea of creating a luxury malt whiskey using the purified urine of diabetics. (The urine of people without diabetes does not contain sugar).
Gilpin collected samples from volunteers, including his own grandmother, which were then purified and the sugar molecules extracted.
The special sugar has been shown to speed up the fermentation process.
Once ready, the whiskey was bottled with the name and age of the “contributor” written on the label.
Fortunately, the bottles only existed as part of a project for the Royal College of Art in London.
While a number of processes lead to heart failure, scarring – or fibrosis – of the heart muscle is considered an important mechanism in many cases. Pirfenidone works by inhibiting the biological processes involved in the formation of scars.
Analyzes showed that heart scars in patients in one trial had not just stopped progressing after a year of treatment, but actually decreased.
Heart failure usually means that the organ becomes unable to effectively pump blood throughout the body. This usually happens if the heart muscle has become too weak or stiff.
Previously, one in five patients would die within a year of diagnosis and only a third would survive more than a decade. However, in recent years, advances in drugs have started to improve the outlook for some patients.
Some of the worst symptoms are related to high pressure in the blood vessels around the lungs.
This forces fluid into the lungs, causing extreme difficulty in breathing and fatigue, as the body lacks oxygen. Fluid can also build up in the abdomen and limbs, causing bloating and swelling, especially in the legs.
The number of Britons with heart failure has increased over the decades due to a combination of an aging population and more people surviving heart attacks.
A growing number of patients with diabetes and high blood pressure, which in turn increases the risk of heart failure, is also a factor. Symptoms can suddenly get worse, which is why heart failure causes an estimated 86,000 emergency room hospitalizations each year.
For many, the only solution would be a heart transplant.
Drug breakthroughs over the past five years have given hope to the 40 percent of people with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, or HFrEF, one of the two main types of disease.
The news was greeted by Nick Hartshorne-Evans (pictured), a heart failure patient and founder of the Pumping Marvelous campaign group
For those with the other type – HFpEF, or heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, there was less cause for celebration.
Royal Brompton Hospital cardiologist Professor Martin Cowie said: “For HFrEF we have four classes of very good therapy. We are spoiled for choice. But not for HFpEF, which has been frustrating for doctors and patients. ‘
In about two-thirds of patients with ICFpEF, there is extensive scarring in the heart muscle, and it is in this more difficult-to-treat group that pirfenidone shows promise.
In the recent trial, 47 patients with ICFpEF and severe heart scarring were given daily tablets of the drug for a year.
After this period, the patients had scans which showed that the scars on the heart were reduced by 1.21 percent on average.
“This reduction in heart scarring could translate into a substantial reduction in death rates and hospital admissions for heart failure,” said Dr Chris Miller of the University of Manchester and consultant cardiologist at the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, who led the study.
Fluid retention also improved in patients taking pirfenidone.
Nick Hartshorne-Evans, a heart failure patient and founder of the Pumping Marvelous campaign group, said: “In this patient group, even a slight improvement in quality of life is significant.
“There are so few treatment options for HFpEF that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence doesn’t even have specific prescribing guidelines for it. And it affects over 600,000 people in Britain. It is important that we have seen a positive result, and what we need now is a large trial with thousands of patients.
[ad_2]
Source link