HANGZHOU - Chinese experts have found that regulating a form of cell death can inhibit heart diseases, which provides a potential therapeutic target for some types of heart diseases.

Ferroptosis is a type of programmed cell death dependent on iron. Scientists have found that ferroptotic cell death may cause damage to important organs and lead to neurodegenerative diseases.

Cardiomyocytes, muscle cells that make up the cardiac muscle, are unable to regenerate, and the death of cardiomyocytes may lead to cardiac injury and other diseases.

Researchers from Zhejiang University School of Medicine found in mice models that ferroptotic cell death in cardiomyocytes is the major cause of cardiac injury.

They reported on the journal Circulation Research that increasing the level of glutathione, an antioxidant known to help resist the toxic stresses of everyday life, can prevent cardiac ferroptosis and the related cardiac injury.

Wang Fudi, a corresponding author of the research, said that the findings provide a possible new therapeutic target for patients at risk of developing cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease that makes it difficult for the heart to pump blood to other parts of the body.