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). “Oestrogen was the protective factor,” says team leader Michael Kotlikoff.
