Usually in the medical field, if experiments are to be done on animals, animals like rats are used. But in a study, scientists are doing something unique. They are studying the abilities of pythons. In their strange study, scientists have found that pythons can prove helpful in curing heart-related diseases such as cardiac fibrosis. They have especially seen such an ability in pythons that does not cause such problems.
Scientists have found that after eating its prey, the python’s heart grows by 25 percent in the first 24 hours and eventually the heart tissue softens and the organ’s heartbeat doubles. In this process, several special genes are activated and boost the snake’s metabolism.
After two weeks of digestion, all systems are back to normal and the heart is slightly larger and stronger. According to the CU Boulder researchers, this process could lead to the creation of new treatments for people with heart conditions such as cardiac fibrosis, in which heart tissue becomes hardened.
Scientists say that studying pythons can be useful in treating human heart diseases. (Symbolic picture: Shutterstock)
Senior author Leslie Leinwand said, “Pythons in the wild can go without eating for months or a year and then eat more than their body mass without suffering any ill effects. There is a lot to be learned from animals like pythons that have evolved ways to survive in extreme environments.”
Leinwand said that in humans, there are two types of heart enlargement. There are healthy hearts that have chronic endurance and there are unhealthy hearts that have disease. In the study, pythons were fasted for 28 days and then given food equal to 25 percent of their body weight, after which they were compared with snakes that were not fed. And results were obtained.
Tags: Amazing news, Bizarre news, OMG News, Weird news
FIRST PUBLISHED : August 24, 2024, 20:13 IST
