Cancer
fromNature
1 day agoWhy is heart cancer so rare? The pumping muscle 'beats' it
The beating heart inhibits cancer growth, explaining the rarity of cardiac tumors in mammals.
Soon I was obsessing over my sleep and activity scores. The reports were generally positive except for one: heart rate variability, or HRV. That's a measure of how much the time between heartbeats changes. Every morning, in bright red, my ring's app singled out HRV and told me: Pay attention. That didn't sound good, although I had no idea why. Before wearable fitness watches, rings and bracelets became so common and started including HRV as a data point, I had never heard of it.
The 42-year-old from Cork, who is originally from Poland and has been living here since 2006, was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy in 2017. Her condition deteriorated and although she received an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), every day was a struggle. Doctors placed Ms Mikuta on the transplant list for new heart in October 2018 and she was among the lucky ones who had the life-saving surgery just a month later.