Ageing of the heart reversed by youthful systemic factors!

Age-associated changes in tissue maintenance and repair have severe consequences to human physiology. The signals and mechanisms that cause age-related tissue demise are unclear. A recently published study in Cell (Loffredo et al, 2013) proposes that blood-borne factors in the adult systemic environment are lost during ageing, which leads to cardiac hypertrophy. One such factor is GDF11. Exposure of aged mice to youthful systemic factors or GDF11 decreases cardiac hypertrophy of the heart.