New Heart Attack Warning Sign

FARMINGTON, Conn., Jan. 7 (UPI) - U.S. cardiologists suggest a protein fragment found in the blood may be a predictor of a heart attack.

Study leader Dr. Bruce Liang of the University Health Center of Connecticut in Farmington and colleagues, Drs. Mariela Agosto, Michael Azrin and Kanwar Singh of the University of Connecticut Health Center and Dr. Allan Jaffe from the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota, for example a heart attack have higher levels of caspase- 3 p17 in the blood.

"We've discovered a new biomarker for heart attack, and showed that apoptosis, or a particular type of cell death, is a cause of heart muscle damage." Liang said in a statement. "The ability to see a heart attack to come with a simple blood test and develop new therapies to block apoptosis, we would get a head start on the processing and preserving the vital heart muscle and heart function."

The results, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, show how this new biomarker is another new way to diagnose a heart attack.

"We've discovered a new biomarker for heart attack, and showed that apoptosis, or a particular type of cell death, is a cause of heart muscle damage," Liang said in a statement.