Cardiologists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have found that the shape of the heart affects the tendency to develop certain diseases of the cardiovascular system. Results of the study published in Med magazine.
People with rounded hearts are more likely to develop heart failure and atrial fibrillation in the future than patients with a longer heart shape. The researchers came to these conclusions by examining MRI images of the hearts of 38,897 healthy people from the BioBank database. The researchers also used computational models to identify the genetic markers associated with the above heart diseases.
“We found that people with a spherical heart were 31% more likely to develop atrial fibrillation and 24% more likely to develop cardiomyopathy. By examining the genetics of sphericity, we found four genes associated with cardiomyopathy: PLN, ANGPT1, PDZRN3, and HLA DR/DQ. stated that three of them were also associated with a higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation.
Cardiologists have also noted that the shape of the heart changes over the years and often becomes rounder over time, especially after a major heart attack. A change in the shape of the heart may be the first sign of the disease, so researchers emphasize the importance of monitoring heart condition throughout life.