ON BEING THE RIGHT SIZE: HEART DESIGN, MITOCHONDRIAL EFFICIENCY and LIFESPAN POTENTIAL

@article{Dobson2003ONBT,
  title={ON BEING THE RIGHT SIZE: HEART DESIGN, MITOCHONDRIAL EFFICIENCY and LIFESPAN POTENTIAL},
  author={Geoffrey P. Dobson},
  journal={Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology},
  year={2003},
  volume={30}
}
  • G. Dobson
  • Published 1 August 2003
  • Biology
  • Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology
1. From the smallest shrew or bumble‐bee bat to the largest blue whale, heart size varies by over seven orders of magnitude (from 12 mg to 600 kg). This study reviews the scaling relationships between heart design, cellular bioenergetics and mitochondrial efficiencies in mammals of different body sizes. 
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45 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
1
Background Citations
18
Methods Citations
1

45 Citations

The Healthy Heart: Lessons from Nature's Elite Athletes.

A survey of mammalian species from 0.002-kg shrews to 43,000-kg whales shows that the human heart is more dog-like than cat-like and that neither body size nor longevity accounts for the relative vulnerability to cardiovascular disease.

Metabolic design in a mammalian model of extreme metabolism, the North American least shrew (Cryptotis parva)

It is demonstrated that liver and kidney mitochondrial content are equivalent to the heart, permitting assessment of mitochondrial adaptations in different organs with similar metabolic demand that are dependent on the topology of energy utilization process in a mammalian model of extreme metabolism.

Determinants of Cardiac Growth and Size.

The current state of knowledge regarding the extrinsic factors and intrinsic mechanisms that control heart size during development are reviewed and the metabolic switch that occurs in the heart after birth and precedes homeostatic control of postnatal heart size is discussed.

Heart rate after cardiac transplantation-lessons from the tortoise and the shrew.

This review analyzes heart rate as a contributing factor in defining the functional lifespan of the transplanted human heart, which may unavoidably determine the longevity of the recipient and proposes a significant role for heart rate in confounding the alloimmune response.

Size relationship of metabolic rate: Oxygen availability as the “missing link” between structure and function?

Does Size Matter?: Clinical Applications of Scaling Cardiac Size and Function for Body Size

The critical role of body size measurements in cardiovascular medicine is described and the experimental evidence, theoretical basis, and clinical application of scaling of various functional parameters are presented.

The creatine kinase energy transport system in the failing mouse heart.

Coevolution of exceptional longevity, exceptionally high metabolic rates, and mitochondrial DNA-coded proteins in mammals

Is our heart a well-designed pump? The heart along animal evolution.

The circulatory pumping systems used in the different classes of animals, their advantages and failures, and the way they have been modified with evolution are described.

Exceptional longevity in songbirds is associated with high rates of evolution of cytochrome b, suggesting selection for reduced generation of free radicals

It is suggested that, in songbirds, the accelerated evolution of cytochrome b involved selection of mutations that reduce the generation of reactive oxygen species, thus contributing to the evolution of exceptional longevity, and possibly also exceptional long-term memory, which is necessary for learning songs.

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