The good news is that fewer people are dying from heart attacks. The bad news is that hundreds of thousands of people are living with badly damaged hearts and heart failure. Heart failure cuts short thousands of lives every year, but now scientists have the first real hope that these lives could be saved.
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We now need to spend £50 million to fund the groundbreaking
research that could begin to literally 'mend broken hearts' in as
little as ten years.
Why do hearts need mending?
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If my heart could be repaired, it would change my life completely
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When you have a heart attack, a part
of the heart muscle dies. This irreversible damage can lead to
heart failure as the heart is not
pumping as efficiently as it should.
Each day people with heart failure have to cope with symptoms
such as tiredness, breathlessness, palpitations, swollen ankles,
lack of appetite, anxiousness and depression.
Why your support is vital
We can encourage lifestyle changes
to reduce risks of getting heart disease, and use surgery and
drugs to minimise the effects of
it, but the human heart cannot heal itself. At the moment,
once your heart 'breaks', it stays that way.
But researchers learning about how our
cells grow are providing promising clues into how we can mend
broken hearts. We need to spend £50 million to fund this
groundbreaking research.
Help us give hope to
millions.
- Heart failure affects over 750,000 people in the UK – and
the problem is growing.
- Many patients with severe heart failure have only a 40 - 50%
chance of living another five years.
- The chances of survival for many heart failure patients are
worse than most forms of cancer.
- Heart and circulatory disease is the UK’s biggest killer.
Who could benefit?
- The majority of people in the UK living with heart failure.
- Thousands of families and carers currently coping with heart
disease.
- The thousands of people living with peripheral vascular disease
(poor blood supply to limbs and vital organs).
In the very long term it may also benefit children born with
some very simple forms of congenital heart disease (heart
defects).
This adds up to millions of people, people like:
The science
Discover how heart failure has been on the rise in the UK since the Sixties.
When we have a heart attack, a portion of our heart muscle is
damaged or dies. Right now, we can't repair it. Unlike
zebrafish, which can regrow parts of their heart, damage to
our hearts is permanent.
For some people this can lead to heart failure, and over three quarters of
a million people in the UK are living with it every day.
Which is why we need
your support to spend £50 million on a
programme of groundbreaking research that could help us begin
to repair damaged hearts.
Research we fund is already giving us
important clues about the origin of heart
muscle cells, has discovered a potential new source of heart muscle cells, and is
helping us find ways to create new
heart muscle cells. We are also looking at the
causes of heart defects could clues about possible new
treatments for heart failure.
Chronic tiredness, shortness of breath,
palpitations, swollen ankles, lack of appetite, anxiousness and
depression are just some of the symptoms of heart failure
which previously active people like Joanne
Ward struggle with for the rest of their lives. Drugs and
surgery can only limit the devastating effects on their quality of
life.
It's not science fiction
We have real hope that this is possible, and
the world’s leading heart scientists agree with us. But why do
we think that with your help, we could Mend Broken
Hearts?
As the zebrafish has shown us, heart
regeneration is possible in nature. We think that if we find and
harness the key genes and chemical messengers, in the right cells,
at the right time, we could find a way to help our hearts fix
themselves. Just like a broken bone will heal.
And of course, we all built our own hearts once upon a time.
Each of us developed from a cluster of cells in the womb into a
fully formed person with a heart. So our cells knew how to do it
once, and we think we can make them do it again and repair
damaged heart muscle.
Research is already providing vital
clues about how human hearts could be repaired. But there's so
much more to do.
With help from your donations, we hope to invest
£50 million in world-leading stem cell research
and developmental biology to see whether we can repair or
replace damaged or dead heart tissue with new, healthy, functioning
heart tissue.
Stem cells have the ability to transform into different types of
specialised cells in the body. We think that they are the
tools we could use to repair the heart, by getting them to turn
into heart cells and replacing damaged muscle.
However, at the moment it's not clear which kind of stem cells
will work best, or how we can harness them to turn into fully
functional heart muscle, which is why we need your support to find out.
So what kind of stem cells are there?
Adult stem cells exist in our bodies after
birth. Each type of adult stem cell can only develop into a limited
range of cell types. For example, a type of stem cell that's
found in a variety of tissue, called a Mesenchymal cell,
can become bone, cartilage, muscle, and fat cells.
Blood from the umbilical cord is especially rich in several
types of adult stem cell. After birth, cord blood can be collected,
frozen and stored in cord blood banks. Some parents have chosen to
store their baby’s cord blood in the hope that the stem cells it
contains may one day be used to develop medical
treatments.
Embryonic stem cells are found in the embryo
and they are nature's experts at making other cells. They are
capable of becoming any type of cell, and they can multiply again
and again to produce more stem cells.
Progenitor cells are found in
different places around the body but are even more restricted in
what kind of cells they can become.They can only divide a limited
number of times – so they can't keep multiplying indefinitely like
stem cells can. Nevertheless, they could be important in tissue
regeneration, and some of our existing research is looking into
progenitor cells in the heart itself.
The use of embryonic stem cells and animals
in research raise some ethical questions. Read our stem cell policy and our animal research policy.
When will this happen?
Within five years we hope to begin early clinical trials. Within
10 years we aim to be running full trials. Within a further decade,
people living with heart failure could look forward to a brighter
future. Help us make this a
reality.
On the cutting edge
We've been saving lives by funding research for 50 years. Our
experience, knowledge and trusted reputation means we can
recruit top scientists from around the world, and give them access
to the most advanced labs and equipment.
We are already funding our
scientists in this innovative area, and the money we hope to raise will fund
more research projects to help us achieve our goal of mending
broken hearts.
About the zebrafish
The zebrafish is amazing. It can heal its own heart. Scientists believe they can unlock the secrets of the zebrafish to repair our damaged heart muscle. We’re funding Dr Tim Chico and his team at the MRC Centre for Developmental and Biomedical Genetics. Here they explain the science behind our Appeal. |
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They’ve got mending hearts
If part of their heart is damaged, they can repair it in a
matter of weeks, just like mending a broken arm. Studying their
heart and circulatory system gives us vital clues about how
we might mend human hearts.
They grow fast
Zebrafish reach adult size – about 3cm long – in around three
months, and their hearts begin to develop after just 12
hours.
They’re see-through
It's easy for researchers to see their heart and blood vessels
grow, as Zebrafish are transparent early on in life.