Large muscle mass doesn't equate to better performance. You can inject the mice with it to make their heart muscle increase in size, but it won't go through the conditioning the python does during ...

Helping the heart with a dose of python (no, not the programming language) Snakes fast for extended periods, after which they gorge on meals that should … ...

Grow an Olympic-sized heart with Burmese python plasma After pythons eat, their hearts nearly double in size.

In a paper in the current issue of Science, they report that a gorging python expands its heart by enlarging existing cells - a process called hypertrophy - and not by creating new ones.

Pythons can eat up to quarter of their body weight, or 40 pounds, in one meal. It turns out those huge meals make their hearts stronger and may offer insight into how to treat heart disease in humans.

A team at Chester Zoo has given a check-up, including heart ultrasound scan to its giant reticulated python, named JF.