Heartbreak is bad but shape of heart can be worse

Patients with baseball-shaped hearts are 31 percent more likely to develop heart conditions than those with traditional Valentine’s hearts, says a latest study

According to a study, patients with baseball-shaped hearts are 31 percent more likely to develop heart conditions than those with traditional Valentine’s hearts

The human heart is an adult fist-sized muscle nestled in your chest cavity. But did you know its shape can potentially be one of the first signs of heart disease? 

Researchers at the Los Angeles-based Smidt Heart Institute have recently published a study in the Med suggesting that the shape of the heart may also indicate your heart’s health beyond size and function. 

According to Christine Albert, chair of the Department of Cardiology at the Smidt Heart Institute and an author of this study, “a change in the heart’s shape may be the first sign of disease”. Therefore, understanding how a heart changes when faced with illness is a critical step in preventing life-altering diseases”. 

Advanced imaging for the heart

The MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) of a cohort of 38,897 healthy individuals from the UK Biobank was analyzed for the study. This enabled the researchers to study the heart’s structure more closely, including the enlargement of the heart chambers or decrease in the pumping strength of the heart muscle, and the results provided new insights into the heart’s health. 

According to the researchers, patients with round hearts shaped like baseballs were 31 percent more likely to develop heart conditions and atrial fibrillation (an irregular and often very rapid heart rhythm) and 24 percent likelier to develop cardiomyopathy than those with longer heart shapes like the traditional Valentine heart. 

The study also reveals that one standard deviation increase in the sphericity index (the geometric measurement of your heart), is associated with a 47 percent increased incidence of cardiomyopathy, and a 20 percent increased incidence of atrial fibrillation. 

What is Cardiomyopathy

Cardiomyopathy is a condition that makes it difficult for your heart to pump blood to the rest of the body. When you have cardiomyopathy, the normal muscle in your heart undergoes changes and becomes thicker, stiffer, thinner, or gets filled with substances that are usually not found in the muscle. Consequently, the heart beats irregularly and may even cause heart failure. 

What is Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial Fibrillation or AFib is the most common type of abnormal heart rhythm disorder. It is a condition when the heart beats too slowly, too fast, or in an irregular way. This results in an obstructed flow of blood in the chambers of the heart. AFib is the cause of about one in seven strokes. According to experts, strokes caused by AFib are more severe than strokes caused by other reasons. 

Way Forward

Researchers of the study say the findings could help diagnose cardiac diseases more effectively and prevent many health conditions. 

While conditions of the heart factor into a lot of causes, studies such as this one, says David Ouyand, a cardiologist at the Smidt Heart Institute. “would allow for faster as well as more comprehensive cardiac measures that may help to identify the genetic variations affecting a heart up to years or even decades before any obvious heart disease develops”. 

The study also reveals the potential use of advanced imaging in studying and understanding the human heart and body beyond what was possible through traditional approaches. 

Also read : Heart attack and cardiac arrest are not same