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Python’s heart-restoring elixir works in mice

Chemical brew used by snakes to build cardiac muscle could help humans

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

Maybe there’s something to snake oil after all. A mix of compounds called fatty acids identified in pythons can spur an exercise-like boost in the size of mouse hearts.

BIG-HEARTED A Burmese python lets its organs shrivel between meals and re-enlarges them for the next feast with a chemical signal in its blood that turns out to work in lab mice also.