"A breakthrough is a moment in time when the impossible becomes possible."
Anthony Robbins
As heart disease patients, wouldn’t it be nice to know what the incredible scientists and researchers are working on to help alleviate heart disease and potentially remove the threat all-together? After all, like all visionaries, I’m certain they believe that they can knock heart disease and cardiovascular disease out of the ballpark forever.
I have investigated their road map and was pleasantly surprised to find that many believe that by the year 2030, heart disease will be well on the way to being a thing of the past.
The future of science and the journey towards incredible medical breakthroughs fascinates me. I’ve always been intrigued by nanotechnology and this is where I believe the great news starts for treatment of all ills.
Firstly, nanotechnology is defined as ‘the branch of technology that deals with dimensions and tolerances of less than 100 nanometres, especially the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules’.
In other words, it’s bloody small.
A nanometer, to put things in perspective, is one thousand-millionth of a metre. That’s tiny. In fact, far tinier than tiny.
As I understand it, scientists have built microscopic robots, or microbots, in the field of nanomedicine. This is a real thing, look it up. My spellchecker didn’t believe me, but it’s real. These microbots are programmed to navigate their way through the cells of our body to clean up impurities and react to issues.
Here’s an excerpt from an intriguing article written in July 2015, by a medical journalist called Adam Hoffman of the Smithsonian.com website.
‘Surgeons will soon be deploying armies of tiny robots to perform microsurgeries throughout the body. Though this may seem like science fiction, a research team from Drexel University has developed a micro-robotic technology that is being considered for an important mission—drilling through clogged arteries.
And here’s the 2020 update!
A collaborative team of scientists from Michigan State University and Stanford University has recently come up with a nanoparticle that can eat heart attack causing plaques.
Dubbed as Trojan Horse, the nanoparticle can be directed to eat debris, reducing and stabilizing plaque. According to scientists, the nanoparticle could be used as a potential treatment for atherosclerosis, the process that underlies heart attack and stroke.
Once inside the macrophages in those plaques, the nanoparticle can deliver a drug agent that stimulates the cell to engulf and eat cellular debris. It evacuates the diseased/dead cells in the plaque centre. By reinvigorating the macrophages, plaque size is decreased and stabilized.
Bryan Smith, associate professor of biomedical engineering at MSU, said, “Future clinical trials on the nanoparticle are expected to reduce the risk of most types of heart attacks, with minimal side effects due to the unprecedented selectivity of the nano-drug.”
So there you go, there are genuine breakthroughs on the way! I trust this will add a ray of belief to your day.
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