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| Music helps heart patients |
A study conducted in Japan might give new hope to heart transplant patients. Masateru Uchiyama, from the Juntendo University Hopsital in Tokyo, found that mice that listened to classical music after a heart transplant lived longer.
Uchiyama tested the mice's blood after heart transplants and found that those who listened to classical music had calmer immune systems, which is what caused them to live longer after surgery. The researchers are interested now in what effect listening to this music might have on human heart transplant patients, especially after a 2003 study found that music therapy lessened pain and nausea in patients after bone marrow transplants.
In the study, mice were given heart transplants from an unrelated donor, with the expectation that they would reject the new organ. The mice were split into four differnt groups, each listening to a different type of musc. The groups listened to: a Verdi opera song, Mozart concertos, Enya, and montone sounds.
The final results found that mice that listened to Verdi lived for an average of 26 days, while the group that listened to monotone sounds only lived for an average of seven days. While we don't yet know exactly what this study means for humans, it is definitely a promising insight into the healing process for transplant patients.
Taken from Making Music, July/August 2012
