By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, April 14, 2023 (HealthDay Information) — Lengthy intervals of immobility can put individuals prone to harmful blood clots — but hibernating bears lie round for months with none drawback. Now scientists suppose they’ve discovered why.
The researchers hope the perception can ultimately result in new medicine for stopping life-threatening blood clots — the sort that start within the legs however can journey to the mind and trigger a stroke, or to the lungs and trigger a pulmonary embolism.
Of their new study, the researchers discovered that in hibernating bears, a specific protein — referred to as warmth shock protein 47 (HSP47) — is considerably dialed down from its regular exercise degree. And that seems to forestall blood clots from forming whereas the animals are in months-long slumber.
Much more importantly, the investigators discovered, that phenomenon additionally happens in different species, together with people. Particularly, HSP47 exercise is low in individuals paralyzed by spinal twine accidents.
Which will sound counterintuitive, since short-term immobility — recovering from an harm or surgical procedure, or taking a long-haul flight — can promote blood clots in some individuals. However it’s identified that folks with paralysis don’t have any larger blood clot danger than cell individuals do.
And the brand new findings counsel that HSP47 would be the key, the research authors mentioned.
The hope is that the discovering will result in new methods to forestall blood clots in susceptible individuals, in line with Dr. Tobias Petzold, one of many researchers on the research.
“We want to additional research the mechanism by which HSP47 works in stopping (blood clots) in additional element,” mentioned Petzold, of Ludwig-Maximilians-College in Munich, Germany.
Some long-used medicines are already used for stopping blood clots in at-risk individuals, together with old style aspirin. However, Petzold mentioned, they’ve unwanted side effects, comparable to an elevated danger of bleeding. So there may be nonetheless a must preserve attempting to find medicines which can be extremely efficient however safer.
“We expect {that a} ‘pure’ blood thinner that the physique is able to mobilizing spontaneously may assist sort out that unmet medical want,” Petzold mentioned.
Why flip to bears in that quest?
“We consider that the bear is a strolling library of options to our sedentary way of life,” Petzold mentioned.
In spite of everything, he identified, hibernating bears spend a big portion of their waking lives feasting and packing on enormous quantities of weight, solely to then spend half the 12 months mendacity round doing nothing. For people, that is a digital recipe for weight problems, muscle loss, thinning bones, sort 2 diabetes and lots of different well being issues — together with blood clots.
But bears emerge from their hibernation unscathed. Understanding what, precisely, protects them may theoretically level to fully new therapies for numerous human illnesses associated to “fashionable life,” Petzold mentioned.
Different researchers are learning bears for that very purpose.
A study revealed final 12 months by a Washington State College crew recognized particular proteins that appear to assist protect hibernating grizzlies from diabetes.
People, it seems, have counterparts to these protecting proteins.
For the brand new research, Petzold and his colleagues studied not solely brown bears, but in addition pigs that have been both cooped-up or free-roaming, and individuals who have been cell or paralyzed by spinal twine accidents.
The researchers discovered that, on common, HSP47 from hibernating bears’ blood cells was decreased by 55 instances, versus active-season bears. The same sample was seen in each pigs and folks.
All of it means that HSP47 could possibly be a great goal for brand spanking new medicines for individuals at excessive danger of blood clots throughout shorter intervals of immobility, in line with an editorial revealed with the research.
For the time being, researchers know much more in regards to the issues that set off clots than what protects in opposition to them, wrote Mirta Schattner, who research blood clotting mechanisms on the Nationwide Academy of Drugs in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In response to Schattner, the brand new research “exhibits that nature is usually a good solution to find out about human biology.”
Blood clots, nevertheless, don’t solely type when persons are immobilized, Schattner identified. Continual well being circumstances like diabetes and numerous cancers can elevate the danger, too. So, she added, one query going ahead is whether or not this warmth shock protein is vital to blood clotting in these circumstances, too.
The findings have been revealed on-line April 13 within the journal Science.
