Love Hormone Oxytocin Literally Helps Mend Broken Hearts in Zebrafish! Can It Help Humans Too? – The Weather Channel

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Breakups can be rough, and as mature, self-respecting adults, there's little we can do except indulge in a Bridget Jones's Diary movie marathon while devouring a tub of ice cream, or seek refuge in a bottle of our favourite whiskey in a bid to mend our shattered hearts. However, there might exist an actual and effective cure for the other, more literal kind of heartbreak!

New research has paved the way for oxytocin, the 'love hormone', to be used to heal damage following a heart attack.

The study, led by researchers from Michigan State University, is based on zebrafish and human cells, and details how oxytocin could play a role in the regeneration of heart tissue after injury with potential applications in the treatment of heart attack.

You know that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you're gazing into your partner's eyes? Yeah, that's the oxytocin talking.

Oxytocin is also often referred to as the 'cuddle hormone'. It is produced by the hypothalamus and released in large quantities when people cuddle, have sex, or orgasm. In fact, oxytocin levels are also known to rise at the time of breastfeeding and childbirth.

Another lesser-known effect of the love hormone is that it helps guard the cardiovascular system against injury by lowering your blood pressure, reducing inflammation, and diffusing free radicals, a reactive byproduct of normal cell metabolism.

Zebrafish, which share 70% of their DNA with humans, are well known for their extraordinary ability to regenerate organs like the brain, retina, bone, skin and other internal organs. Also, these fishes can regrow their heart when as much as a quarter of it has been lost!

Now, the aforementioned study has found that the oxytocin in zebrafish helps their hearts replace injured and dead cardiomyocytes, the muscle cells that power heart contractions. And early results in human cells hint that oxytocin could stimulate similar effects in people if delivered with the right timing and dose.

"Oxytocin is widely used in the clinic for other reasons, so repurposing for patients after heart damage is not a long stretch of the imagination. Even if heart regeneration is only partial, the benefits for patients could be enormous," explained Dr Aitor Aguirre, an assistant professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering of Michigan State University and the study's senior author.

Oxytocin remains in the circulatory system only for a short while, which might limit its effect in humans. In this case, drugs designed to last longer or with a higher potency might prove to be more helpful. Future research will involve pre-clinical trials in animals and clinical trials in humans.

The findings of this study are published in the Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology and can be accessed here.

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Love Hormone Oxytocin Literally Helps Mend Broken Hearts in Zebrafish! Can It Help Humans Too? - The Weather Channel