Columbia Researchers Uncover Dangerous Connection Between Serotonin and Heart Valve Disease - SciTechDaily

The results of the multicenter study, which was supported by a grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and co-led by Columbia’s Giovanni Ferrari, PhD, and CHOP’s Robert J.

“Certain medications can ease the symptoms and prevent complications, but they do not treat the mitral valve,” says Ferrari, scientific director of the Cardiothoracic Research Program at Columbia.

SSRIs are some of the most widely prescribed types of antidepressants and include well-known medications like fluoxetine (Prozac) and sertraline (Zoloft).

The researchers suggest testing DMR patients for potential low SERT activity by genotyping them for 5-HTTLPR, which can be determined easily from a DNA sample obtained from the blood or a mouth swab.

The researchers did not find a negative effect with normal doses of SSRIs or the “long-long” variant in cells from healthy human mitral valves.

Reference: “Decreased serotonin transporter activity in the mitral valve contributes to progression of degenerative mitral regurgitation” by Estibaliz Castillero, Emmett Fitzpatrick, Samuel J. Keeney, Alex M. D’Angelo, Benjamin B. Pressly, Michael T. Simpson, Mangesh Kurade, W. Clinton Erwin, Vivian Moreno, Chiara Camillo, Halley J. Shukla, Vaishali V. Inamdar, Arbi Aghali, Juan B. Grau, Elisa Salvati, Itzhak Nissim, Lubica Rauova, Mark A. Oyama, Stanley J. Stachelek, Chase Brown, Abba M. Krieger, Robert J.