Young Girl's Two Hearts Helped Her Survive

Her ordeal is assisting researchers as they work on ways to improve recovery of diseased hearts.

SUMMARY: Hannah Clark, a British teen-ager who received a transplanted heart as an infant, has made a "magic" recovery, her doctor said. Ten years ago her heart was not contracting, and when she was 11 months old her doctors decided to transplant a donated heart next to it, giving her two hearts. The heart with which she was born was defective because of cardiomyopathy, a condition marked by enlarged or inflamed heart tissue that can slow down blood flow through the heart, cause blood clots, and lead to heart failure.

By the age of 4, both her hearts appeared to be functioning normally. The transplanted heart seemed to be helping her diseased heart to heal. However, she was facing a new problem. Because of the donor heart, Clark had to take powerful immunosuppressant drugs. These drugs were apparently making her susceptible to cancer. When she was 8 and fighting a long battle with cancer, her doctors decided to just remove the second heart and take her off the immunosuppressant drugs. Today Clark seems to have beaten the cancer and is living free of medication. She is able to go swimming and shopping.

Leading cardiologists say Clark's remarkable recovery will influence future research into heart transplants and artificial hearts. Now that they know the human heart is not an "end-stage organ" but that it has regenerative powers to heal, they hope to find out exactly how a diseased heart can recover.

Researchers who work with LVADs (devices that support the heart's pumping ability) and CRT (a therapy that helps reset faulty electrical problems in the heart) had noticed regeneration of heart tissue in their patients. "The next steps are, 'How does it do this and how can we capitalize on this process,' " said Dr. Douglas P. Zipes, a medical journal editor, about the heart's ability to regenerate.

In addition to these developments, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles are obtaining stem cells from the hearts of adult patients with heart problems, growing them in a petri dish, and then infusing them back into the patients, hoping to get their hearts to grow.

To read the entire article click on this ABC NEWS link.

COMMENT: On Monday this blog commented on a recent Pew Research Center survey which showed Americans still see a lot of value in science while having major disagreements with scientists on at least two issues-evolution and global warming.

Today's story may provide a clue as to how people can hold these two seemingly contradictory positions. When scientists are doing more than just theorizing, when they are working with facts and accomplishing something that has real promise for helping Americans, I think most people are ready to give them support.

Nobody can deny that medical research can be credited with significant accomplishments. People are living longer, have more options to treat diseases, and in most cases can be more optimistic about their future health. We can thank scientists working in medical research for these advances.

Technology also has many success stories, whether it is safer cars, labor-saving devices, renewable energy, or even better "toys" for children and adults.

Of course, nobody lives forever in this world. This is why Jesus is preparing a place for us in heaven. While we have faith in Him as our Savior from sin, we also can have faith that He can use medical science and other sciences for our good, that is when scientists are not engaging in wild speculations but rather are actually trying to improve the world we currently live in.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

Are self-tanning lotions safe?

They seem to be. Self-tanners approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) include dihydroxyacetone (DHA) which a few test-tube studies have suggested might cause cell damage. However, DHA has been in use in the U.S. for more than 40 years with no ill effects reported, and there are no known human studies reporting a risk.

Source: Consumer Reports OnHealth (August, 2009)

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