David Bennett’s heart stopped working. The 57-year-old American was completely dependent on a machine that oxygenated his blood and pumped it around his body. Only a groundbreaking new treatment could save his life.
Like 126 million compatriots, Bennett suffered from cardiovascular disease. More than a million Americans die from this every year – one every half minute.
However, David’s doctors had other plans for their patient. They wanted to try a controversial method that had never been applied to humans before: His heart would be replaced with a genetically modified pig heart.
The new treatment was not approved by the health authorities, but the doctors were given the green light anyway, because Bennett had no other options.
This situation points to a general lack of weapons in the fight against cardiovascular disease.
All research results in this area have been very positive for a long time. Cholesterol has been identified as one of the main culprits and new stem cell treatments have shown promising results. Unfortunately, these claims have turned out to be partly false.
Investigators had to start all over again, and Bennett’s surgery was the first step.
The biggest killer in the world
18 million deaths – more than 30 percent of all deaths worldwide – are due to cardiovascular disease. This makes them undisputedly the biggest killer in the world.
By comparison, the second biggest killer, cancer, affects about 10 million people. The ratio between the two varies by location. In several Northern European countries, for example, they keep pace.
Cardiovascular diseases are especially fatal among the elderly. Among young people, the most common causes of death are accidents, suicide and drug abuse.
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Cardiovascular disease refers to diseases of the heart and blood vessels. The most common are ischemic heart disease, in which the heart muscles do not receive enough oxygen, and thrombosis in the brain. David Bennett suffered from heart failure, probably from severe ischemic heart disease.
Most cardiovascular diseases occur when fat from the bloodstream accumulates in the arteries. The clot, called plaque, narrows the blood vessel so that less blood can pass through. If the clot continues to grow, the blood vessel becomes completely blocked or ruptures, causing blood clots elsewhere.
Scientists have long believed that a diet high in saturated fat was one of the main causes of cardiovascular disease. According to the theory, saturated fat leads to a lot of cholesterol in the blood, which accumulates in the blood vessels.
The link between cholesterol and cardiovascular disease is considered by many to be scientifically proven and many drugs are based on it. However, more and more scientists have their doubts about this theory.
The studies linking cholesterol to cardiovascular disease have been re-examined and results are thought to have been manipulated — for example, by only selecting numbers that supported the theory.
Critics also point out that new studies show that people with very high cholesterol live longer than those with very low cholesterol.
However, the cholesterol theory is not yet off the table. A lot of solid research has been done and many scientists still think that cholesterol is a major culprit. However, the criticism means that researchers need to step back and consider other options — options that could lead to new drugs.
Pigs can save lives
If cholesterol research is a dead end, scientists need an alternative route. The most promising so far seems to lead to stem cells.
In 2001, American researchers showed that damaged mouse hearts could be repaired with stem cells. The experiment unleashed a wave of new experiments.
Unfortunately, the results were made up and the enthusiasm for stem cells has now all but disappeared.
Science really has to start all over again. Fortunately, there are all kinds of new ideas, including putting genetically modified pig hearts like David Bennett’s.
Normally our immune system would attack an organ from another animal species, but the pig’s heart had removed some genes that would normally trigger our immune system.
However, no one knew for sure whether the adaptation would prevent a violent immune reaction in Bennett. So doctors and scientists waited in suspense after the surgery in January 2022.
The procedure went beyond expectations and Bennett’s situation improved significantly. He was soon able to start rehabilitation.
Sadly, he died two months later – apparently due to an undiscovered virus in his new heart. Those two months, however, were longer than he would have lived otherwise, and his story offers hope.
That Bennett survived so long with a pig heart shows that the method has the potential to save millions of people with serious heart disease. More importantly, though, it paves the way for other innovative weapons against the world’s primary killer.