Altman, Lawrence. “What Happens After a Python Gorges May Help Human Hearts.” New York Times Online. 27 October 2011
The digestion of prey in pythons is an unbelievable phenomenon. They swallow huge prey; dear, alligators, and pigs, and then their heart and organs double in size within that day, shrinking back in a period of two weeks. But how is this beneficial to people, who are mammals not reptiles, with diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity? Dr. Leslie A. Leinwand and Dr. Cecilia A Riquelme, who began the research of python metabolism at the University of Colorado in 2005, have found through extensive observation that the process by which the python heart grows bigger is by enlarging it’s existing cells, or hypertrophy, not by creating new ones. Through the process of gas chromatography, they found that a specific combination of three fatty acids, mryistic, plamitic, and palmitoleic, was produced in high quantities in the blood plasma while the python was feasting. It is this plasma that the python produces that induces the hypertrophy. They proved that they could induce the engorgement of the cells in fasting pythons when they injected them with a fed python’s blood and hypertrophy occurred. If possible to be replicated in humans, Hypertrophy is the factor that can be beneficial. It happens in the human heart in two types, the first as a result of illnesses such as high blood pressure and heart attacks, and the second more beneficial of the two that occurs from exercise in healthy athletes. Further research found that when the blood was injected into live mice, the mouse heart cells enlarged and it was the healthier version of the two that took place.
This was an encouraging find because mice are mammals like humans, and it means that it could be used as treatments of ailments of the human heart. Researchers say that that through understanding of this process of hypertrophy, they can develop new ways to “delay, prevent, treat or even reverse various hereditary and acquired human diseases.” Further research on the topic should be made as soon as possible, as to how this can be applied safely to humans. Hopefully it can be manipulated into a drug available to sufferers, helping them to enjoy a better life.
This article did a very good job explaining the research done in a way that is understandable for a nonscientific reader. But by doing so, it is extremely long, and lacks details on the methods that the scientists used to make their discoveries. It is also poorly laid out, the main points of the article being repeated several times only differing in small details added or omitted, when it could have been stated in one detail paragraph or sentence. So while I was writing my summary I was force to flip back and forth between pages. Although it does state that hypertrophy in the python is the same kind that results after the activity of athletes in human hearts it does not say how this is beneficial in people with heart illness, leaving many questions unanswered. Does it make them healthier? Does it make the heart stronger to fight against the illness? Besides engorging the cells in the heart of the mice, what were other affects? All questions that I would like answered. Besides these weaker points of the article, it was very good and informative.
Posted for M. Rizzo
Before I read Meredith's article, I never knew how pythons engulfed larger animals in the first place, so this article was very informative to me. Meredith presented this new find in an interesting way by adding rhetorical questions in the beginning to prepare the reader for the article summary. Also, Meredith's article wasn't vague like some of the articles I usually read and she made sure she cited the research done. In addition, Meredith presented this article in a simple manner so that any reader could easily follow what was going on.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I would like to know more about the plasma blood and why it is able to allow pythons to eat larger animals. In addition, I would have liked to have known more about the experiment done on lab mice and if there were any negative side effects to the plasma blood.
But other than that, this article article was very interesting. Not only did I learn how pythons engulf larger animals but I also learned that their plasma blood may be the cure to heart disease and may be able to treat unhealthier hearts.