Study Explains How Heart Failure Causes Diabetes
Posted by Deanna Kidd on Wed, Feb 01, 2012
Having heart failure or diabetes alone is worrisome enough, but these two conditions often exist together. In a study that was published in the January 2012 issue of the Cell Metabolism journal, researchers appear to have discovered the reason why heart failure leads to diabetes, and perhaps, the way to break the metabolic vicious cycle.
Author of the study, Tohru Minamino from the Graduate School of Medicine of the Chiba University, said that findings of the study have provided a clearer understanding of the high incidence of heart failure among people with diabetes, as well as why heart failure patients experience an increased prevalence of insulin resistance and how the treatment of insulin resistance can improve heart failure patients’ prognosis.
Heart failure creates a domino effect of health problems. The stress that comes with the condition triggers the sympathetic nervous system to activate a cellular aging signal called the p53, and this signal will eventually cause systemic insulin resistance, inflammation in fat tissue, and deterioration of heart function. The p53, which is a protein, functions as a tumor suppressor, and it can prevent the development of cancer. However, if it is activated constantly, it can increase the risk of inflammation, cancer, and certain age-related diseases, including heart disease.
In earlier studies, Minamino had shown that stress-induced or age-related accumulation of the p53 signal in the heart can lead to heart failure, and extra calories and aging can induce p53 in fat tissue. Now, it appears that the activation of p53 in the heart can also activate p53 in fat tissue. The interaction of the p53 signals in the heart and fat tissue accelerates the development of age-related diseases. In order to prevent this from happening, a treatment method can be developed to block the inflammation that results from the activation of p53, without compromising its abilities to fight tumor.
