AMES, Iowa – Researchers may have discovered a way to turn back the clock on aging heart muscles in fruit flies, a development that could lead to new therapies for older humans with heart disease.

Hua Bai, an assistant professor of genetics, development and cell biology at Iowa State University, led a study, published recently in the academic journal Autophagy, that explores the genetic mechanism that causes fly cardiac muscles to deteriorate with age. Bai said the research team restored much of the cardiac function in middle-aged flies, which experience many of the same heart maladies as middle-aged humans.

Read the entire article by Fred Love, "Study of cardiac muscles in flies might help you keep your heart young," on the ISU News Service website.