This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Bariatric surgeries like gastric bypass are often used for weight loss, but they can also help protect patients from fatal heart attacks, possibly by altering the levels of gut-derived metabolic hormones like GLP-1, leptin, ghrelin, and insulin, which are known to affect heart tissue, or by acting on heart tissue directly. Researchers recently investigated the mechanisms by performing three common bariatric surgeries on non-obese, non-diabetic rats. Ten weeks later, the researchers subjected the rats to simulated heart attacks by restricting and reestablishing their cardiac blood flow. Both Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy, but not ileal transposition surgery, reduced the size of the damaged area in the heart and the no-reflow area to which blood flow couldn’t be restored. Gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy also increased GLP-1 and leptin levels, while sleeve gastrectomy reduced ghrelin levels. In contrast, none of the surgeries affected insulin levels..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe the structure of the heart and explain how cardiac muscle is different from other musclesDescribe the cardiac cycleExplain the structure of arteries, veins, and capillaries, and how blood flows through the body

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe the structure of the heart and explain how cardiac muscle is different from other musclesDescribe the cardiac cycleExplain the structure of arteries, veins, and capillaries, and how blood flows through the body

Students are presented with the unit's grand challenge problem: You are the lead engineer for a biomaterials company that has a cardiovascular systems client who wants you to develop a model that can be used to test the properties of heart valves without using real specimens. How might you go about accomplishing this task? What information do you need to create an accurate model? How could your materials be tested? Students brainstorm as a class, then learn some basic information relevant to the problem (by reading the transcript of an interview with a biomedical engineer), and then learn more specific information on how heart tissues work their structure and composition (lecture information presented by the teacher). This prepares them for the associated activity, during which students cement their understanding of the heart and its function by dissecting sheep hearts to explore heart anatomy.