AsianScientist (July 12, 2017) – A team of cardiac investigators at the National University Heart Centre, Singapore (NUHCS) have identified thymosin beta-4 (TB4) as a novel biomarker of heart disease in women.
This research, led by Assistant Professor Chester Drum of the NUHCS, was conducted as part of a collaborative, seven-year nationwide clinical research study called the Singapore Heart Failure Outcomes and Phenotypes (SHOP) study, which involved over 1,000 patients with heart failure in Singapore. Their findings are published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Women typically acquire heart disease a decade later than men. One potential explanation is that women respond to early heart disease by producing protective factors that delay severe heart problems to later in life.
To better understand what these protective factors may be, the researchers enrolled patients in equal numbers of men and women from the various ethnic groups in Singapore and screened their plasma using an advanced technique known as mass spectroscopy.
TB4 is found naturally in many cells, including platelets, white blood cells, the thymus gland and the spleen, and shows a remarkable ability to protect the heart from injury. The researchers found that women with raised levels of TB4 in their plasma were at increased risks of dying from heart disease. This suggests that TB4 may be a compensatory response to cardiac disease and an accurate predictor of patient mortality when other biomarkers are lowly expressed and less predictive.
“Interestingly, TB4 levels are elevated not just in women with heart failure, but we see raised TB4 levels in a type of heart failure more common in women known as ‘heart failure with preserved ejection fraction’,” explained Drum.
A higher expression of TB4 in women was also tightly associated with other markers relevant to diseases predominant in women, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and Sjogren’s disease.
The study hopes to raise awareness among the public that heart failure among women continues to rise in developed countries such as Singapore due to an ageing population and increased rates of hypertension, diabetes and smoking. By gaining a better understanding into their heart health matters, women can become more aware of how to manage their own heart health.
The researchers say it is important for women above age 50 years old, and who have a family history of coronary heart disease, to be regularly screened for high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure and diabetes.
The article can be found at: Drum et al. (2017) Thymosin Beta‐4 Is Elevated in Women With Heart Failure With Preserved Ejection Fraction.
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Source: National University Health System; Photo: Shutterstock.
