There is good news for heart attack patients. Australian researchers have formulated a new drug called Dz13 that can prove really beneficial in enhancing a patient’s cardiac [pertaining to the heart.] health after surviving a heart attack.

Heart attack or Myocardial Infarction (MI), as it is medically known, is a life threatening condition. Even if one survives it, the quality of life afterwards suffers a lot. Hence, the new research assumes all the more significance.

Dz13 works by affecting the genes [basic, functional units of heredity, each occupying a specific place on a chromosome.] responsible for inflammation, thereby decreasing the muscle impairment following a heart attack. This in turn puts the patient on the fast track to recovery.

Study findings:
The study was conducted by a team of researchers headed by Levon Khachigian from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

As per researchers, the Dz13 drug keeps a check on the number of cells that die because of angioplasty and stents. Besides, it enhances the pumping action of the heart.

Khachigian was quoted as saying, “While this drug doesn’t prevent the heart attack, it does reduce the damaging effects of the blockage on the heart once it’s happened. It’s a targeted therapy that can be used to complement other procedures and improve chances of a normal recovery.”

Elaborating on Dz13, Ravinay Bhindi, a study co-author from Royal North Shore Hospital said, “This drug not only structurally reduces heart attack size but it protects heart muscle function. Both those things in combination improve outcomes and give hope to patients.”

Heart surgeries can damage heart muscles Khachigian further explained that surgeries performed to resurrect blocked arteries like angioplasty are as much responsible for impairment of heart muscles as the heart attack itself.

“At both these times a range of potentially damaging coordinated molecular responses kick in. We have been able to develop a drug to silence a disease-triggering gene. The drug improves heart function, regardless of whether it’s administered at the time of the heart attack, or at the time of the revascularization process,” remarked Khachigian.

India is home to 60 percent heart patients:
The latest study holds a lot of promise for India in particular, considering the fact that it accounts for 60 percent of the total heart patients in the world.