PTI : Houston: Your sweet tooth may
be damaging your heart!
Eating too much sugar can set people
down a pathway to heart failure, a new study has warned.
A single small molecule, the glucose
metabolite glucose 6-phosphate (G6P), causes stress to the heart
that changes the muscle proteins and induces poor pump function
leading to heart failure, according to the researchers at The
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).
G6P can accumulate from eating too
much starch and/or sugar, researchers said.
"Treatment is difficult. Physicians
can give diuretics to control the fluid, and beta-blockers and ACE
inhibitors to lower the stress on the heart and allow it to pump
more economically," said Heinrich Taegtmeyer, principal investigator
and professor of cardiology at the UTHealth Medical School.
"But we still have these terrible
statistics and no new treatment for the past 20 years," said
Taegtmeyer.
Taegtmeyer performed preclinical
trials in animal models, as well as tests on tissue taken from
patients at the Texas Heart Institute, who had a piece of the heart
muscle removed in order to implant a left ventricle assist device.
Both led to the discovery of the damage caused by G6P.
"When the heart muscle is already
stressed from high blood pressure or other diseases, and then takes
in too much glucose, it adds insult to injury," Taegtmeyer said.
Researchers said the study has
opened doors to possible new treatments. Two drugs, rapamycin (an
immunosuppressant) and metformin (a diabetes medication) disrupt
signalling of G6P and improved cardiac power in small animal
studies, they said.
"These drugs have a potential for
treatment and this has now cleared a path to future studies with
patients," Taegtmeyer said.
The study was published in the
Journal of the American heart Association.
Source:
Indian Express
