▲ 2 r/Heartfailure
New study on heart failure finds Urolithin A, a compound some people's gut bacteria produce from pomegranates, improved heart relaxation and reduced fibrosis in mice with the stiff-heart form of heart failure. It also improved relaxation in engineered human heart tissue - Science Advances
Researchers at King's College London found that urolithin A acts on a specific site on a protein called PKGIα that helps heart muscle relax. In a mouse model built to mimic human HFpEF, it improved diastolic function and reduced fibrosis and heart muscle enlargement. They saw the same relaxation benefit in human heart tissue grown from stem cells.
Paper (open access): https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aec8088
University Press Release: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/pomegranates-could-unlock-heart-failure-treatment
Disclosure: I work at Timeline, a company that researches urolithin A. I wasn't involved in this study.
u/UrolithinA — 6 hours ago