The Healthy Heart: Lessons from Nature's Elite Athletes
Abstract
The incidence of cardiovascular disease in humans is more than three times that of many wild and domestic mammals despite nearly identical heart morphologies and responses to exercise. A survey of mammalian species from 0.002-kg shrews to 43,000-kg whales shows that the human heart is more dog-like than cat-like and that neither body size nor longevity accounts for the relative vulnerability to cardiovascular disease. Rather, a major difference is daily activity patterns, which may underlie the comparatively healthy hearts of wild mammals.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2015
- Source ID
- 10.1152/physiol.00017.2015
Entities
People
- Diana L. Steller
- Donald A. Croll
- Penni Bengtson
- Randall W. Davis
- Terrie M. Williams
Organizations
- Moss Landing Marine Laboratories
- Office of Naval Research Global
- University of California, Santa Cruz