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Age-related diastolic dysfunction is a common cause of congestive heart failure: No specific treatments repair the stiff and thickened myocardium. Investigators from Harvard have discovered a molecule that reverses a similar age-related process in mice.
The research team joined the circulation of an old mouse to that of a young mouse. After 4 weeks of shared circulation, the thickened and stiff heart muscle of the old mouse became dramatically less thick and stiff. The investigators postulated that some substance was present in the blood of the young mouse that rejuvenated the heart muscle of the old mouse. They identified a molecule called GDF11 that was present in higher concentrations in the blood of young mice than in old mice. To prove …