Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
Mice with a specific genetic modification that causes heart failure had more than double the scarring in their heart blood vessels and tissue compared to normal mice.
The antioxidant NAC made the heart cells in mice with heart failure produce about 42% less of a marker that shows oxidative stress.
Giving mice a specific antioxidant called NAC for 8 weeks made the scarring in their heart blood vessels and tissue about 40-57% less than in mice that didn't get the antioxidant.
Giving iron directly into the bloodstream might help heart failure patients who are low on iron (even if they don't have anemia) by fixing the iron deficiency in their heart cells.
The heart's own iron regulation system might affect how badly the heart is damaged in people with too much iron in their bodies, like those with hemochromatosis or thalassemia.
When the body is low on iron, the heart makes more hepcidin, which might help protect the heart from damage during iron deficiency.
When mice lose hepcidin only in their heart cells, their overall body iron levels and storage remain normal, showing that heart hepcidin doesn't affect the body's overall iron balance.
Heart cells make and release hepcidin using a process that requires the enzyme Furin, and they release more of it when the body is low on iron.
When mice don't have hepcidin in their heart cells or have a version of ferroportin that can't respond to hepcidin, their heart cells lose too much iron, causing the heart cells to become iron deficient.
In the heart, the way hepcidin responds to iron levels is different from how it works in the liver - when the body is low on iron, the heart makes more hepcidin protein even though the gene for it is less active.
When heart cells don't have enough iron, their energy production systems break down, causing mitochondria to malfunction and forcing the cells to rely more on sugar for energy, which happens before the heart starts failing.
Giving iron directly into the bloodstream of mice with heart cell hepcidin deficiency stops their hearts from failing, proving that the heart problems are caused by the heart cells not getting enough iron.
When mice have heart cells that can't respond to hepcidin (because they have a special version of ferroportin), their hearts fail in the same way as when they don't have hepcidin at all, showing that hepcidin works by controlling ferroportin in heart cells.
When mice lose the ability to make hepcidin in their heart cells, their heart cells don't get enough iron, which causes their hearts to weaken and eventually fail, even though their overall body iron levels are normal.
The effect of processed foods on breast density during the first half of the menstrual cycle only happened at medium levels of consumption, not at the highest levels.
This study included 330 girls from Chile who came from families with lower incomes, and researchers followed them from childhood through their teenage years.
When looking at how much of the total calories came from processed foods (instead of how many grams), there was no consistent link to breast density at any point in the menstrual cycle.
Researchers used a special X-ray technique called DXA to measure breast tissue density 4 years after girls started menstruating, and this method has been proven to work well for measuring breast composition in teenagers.
Even after accounting for factors like body weight, exercise habits, smoking, and mother's education level, eating more processed foods didn't consistently change breast density measurements.
Teenagers in this study got about 42% of their daily calories from processed foods, which matches what other studies have found in Chilean kids and teens.
Whether eating processed foods affects breast density seems to depend on what part of the menstrual cycle a girl is in - it only shows an effect during the first half of the cycle, not the second half.
When looking at all teenage girls together without considering where they were in their menstrual cycle, eating more processed foods didn't consistently change how dense their breast tissue looked on scans.