Big heart secrets 'aid athletes'

[Arjun Barua]

Nikhil, this might interest you.

A study of top rowers has found how a naturally-produced hormone can actually make their hearts bigger and more powerful.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7547665.stm

 

[Nikhil]

Wow, that's amazing. This can definitely be abused leading to cardiac hypertrophy, or enlargement of the heart. If your heart expands beyond the ideal point of elasticity it will compromise the forceful nature of ventricles. This concept is called the Frank-starling mechanism, in which the heart's chambers are flexible and expand to collect a certain volume of blood before ejection. If your heart loses its ability to forcefully eject all of the blood in its chamber, it leads to poor circulation, mixing of blood and heart failure.

Nice find!