Pink research
This is how our love hormone could heal and strengthen the heart
© Yakobchuk Olena / Adobe Stock
Love inspires our being in many ways. According to pink research, the love hormone oxytocin, which is active during this time, could not only provide us with mental benefits, but also physical ones!
The love hormone, known in technical terms as oxytocin, has a number of benefits that we can benefit from. As the name suggests, the neurohormone is increasingly produced when we find love and works in our brain. According to Michigan State University study in the USA, in addition to well-deserved feelings of happiness, it also has healing effects that could have a positive effect on our cells.
This is how the love hormone can affect your heart
One of your most important organs, the heart, seems to be particularly good for oxytocin. The researchers found that it can stimulate mature cells in the heart’s epicardium, causing them to be recoded and mature like a stem cell. Previously lost, defective cells can thus be replaced by the newly created ones. A finding that, according to the science magazine “Frontiers”, could even help in the regeneration of the heart, for example after a heart attack.
Previous studies have already confirmed various positive properties of the love hormone. For example, it strengthens our relationships by helping us build mutual trust and creates positive feelings related to art, sports or sex.
How does the love hormone do it?
Oxytocin has a positive effect on our cells – namely on those of the outer heart layer, which then migrate into the heart muscle. There they become muscle cells that are responsible for the contraction of the heart. The regeneration of these cells could therefore enable new forms of therapy in the case of a damaged organ. Because during a heart attack, the cells usually die off in large numbers. The effect of the love hormone was tested on injured hearts of zebrafish and human cell cultures. Zebrafish are known to have the ability to regenerate their own organs. Even if a predator eats part of them, they live on. Even if up to a quarter of the heart is lost. In the fish, the trigger that ensures this process is oxytocin, which affects other cells.
Further research is necessary
The power of the love hormone, which the zebrafish makes use of, we can possibly also acquire in the human heart at some point. However, not in a natural way like with the fish, but with the help of forms of therapy or medication. “Oxytocin is already widely used in medicine, so using it for patients after cardiac damage is not too far-fetched. Even if cardiac recovery is only partial, the benefits could be enormous,” explains senior author Aitor Aguirre in science magazine. “The next step is to look at oxytocin levels in people after heart damage.” One problem with this is that the love hormone is very short-lived and the effects could be disrupted as a result, according to the researcher. Further investigations are therefore necessary to address this problem.
Source used: Frontiers