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Nature Medicine 14, 244–245 (1 March 2008) | doi:10.1038/nm0308-244

The weakness of a big heart

Thomas Force

Heart failure is often accompanied by enlargement of the heart (hypertrophy), as the organ strains to perform its task despite being damaged. Cell enlargement, rather than proliferation, accounts for this hypertrophy, because cardiomyocytes are terminally differentiated.