If you’ve been on a long flight, you’ve probably heard that you should get up and move regularly to avoid blood clots. This is because when our bodies stand still for long periods of time, our blood is more likely to pool, clot, and clot. A new study reveals why, and the findings could have implications for creating better anticoagulant treatments for people.
In a study spanning more than a decade, a team led by researchers from German and Swedish institutions took blood samples from brown bears in Sweden during the depth of their winter hibernation phase and during their active summer months. During hibernation, they found that a protein known as HSP47 was almost absent from blood samples. HSP47 levels increased when bears returned to their active phase.
Based on this knowledge, researchers genetically engineered mice not to produce HSP47. As a result, the ability of the mice to form blood clots was greatly reduced.
In addition, the research team collected blood samples from humans who were immobilized by spinal cord injuries. Like bears, these people spend their entire lives immobile, but they don’t tend to experience excessive blood clots. Sure enough, human patients also had lower levels of HSP47. Twenty-seven days of strict bed rest in healthy volunteers reduced HSP47 levels.
It is clear from research that our bodies naturally downregulate this protein when we are immobilized for long periods of time, but researchers believe that the body activates it before it can do so on its own. I suspect that activating blood clots may help reduce the risk of a blood clot known as deep vein thrombosis. Researchers also found that using gene-based solutions to help with clotting could be safer than using current standard blood thinners, which pose a bleeding risk to the recipient. said.
“The ideal treatment for deep vein thrombosis is to prevent clots from forming where they shouldn’t form without interfering with the body’s normal blood-clotting mechanisms,” the study said. told to “This could be just that.”
While current bear studies open up new avenues of investigation for combating potentially deadly blood clots, researchers say there is still more to learn from animals.
Ole Frøbert, Faculty of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Sweden, said: “We are now working to understand why bears do not lose muscle mass during hibernation, unlike inactive humans.”
The study results are reported in the journal, chemistry.
Source: Aarhus University by EurekAlert
