Using glucosamine supplements regularly may be linked to a lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD). Researchers led by Lu Qi at Tulane University in New Orleans, US, drew on data from the UK Biobank, a large population-based study of more than half a million British people (BMJ, doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l1628).
In a world first, researchers have successfully induced pig hearts to self-repair themselves after damage. Pig hearts that had undergone myocardial infarction or heart attack underwent gene therapy to make the cardiac muscle cells proliferate – a capability generally lost a few days after birth.
Telomeres are DNA-protein structures at the tails of chromosomes, which are thought to act as a molecular clock on ageing. Each time a cell divides, the telomeres shorten a bit, and when they become critically short the cell’s ability to divide is impaired.