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Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 2009;301(19):1977.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Scientists have long wondered whether human beings are able to generate new heart muscle cells after birth. Now, researchers from Sweden, using the isotope carbon 14 released in the 1950s during a period of above-ground testing of nuclear weapons as a marker to retrospectively date the age of heart cells, have found that the heart does indeed generate new cardiomyocytes (Bergmann O et al. Science. 2009;324[5923]:98-102).

Scientists have found that the human heart generates new cardiomyocytes throughout life. (Photo credit: CJ Guerin/MRC Toxicology Unit/www.sciencesource.com)

The researchers reasoned that levels of carbon 14 in the DNA of cardiomyocytes would be relatively high in persons born during the years of above-ground nuclear tests and if new heart muscle cells were generated in the same individual later in life, the cells would have lower levels of the isotope (reflecting the dwindling levels of carbon 14 in the . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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