OESTROGEN may protect women from some forms of heart disease, research in mice suggests.
Researchers at Cornell University in Ithaca studied a strain of mice in which males, but not females, develop a potentially fatal enlargement of the heart called cardiac hypertrophy.
When they gave the mice a drug that blocked oestrogen production, the females fell ill too (Nature, vol 416, p 334). 鈥淥estrogen was the protective factor,鈥� says team leader Michael Kotlikoff.
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