The Diabetic Heart

Reviews findings and concepts on the pathogenesis and therapy of heart dysfunction in chronic diabetes. It looks at the functional and morphological changes, subcellular defects and metabolic alterations in the diabetic heart and at the effects of diabetes on myocardial cell damage during ischemia.

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This volume reviews findings and concepts on the pathogenesis and therapy of heart dysfunction in chronic diabetes. The book brings together a wide range of studies by investigators worldwide using electrophysiological, morphological, metabolic, functional and biochemical approaches. These studies shed light on the functional and morphological changes, subcellular defects, and metabolic alterations occurring in the diabetic heart and on the effects of diabetes on myocardial cell damage during ischemia. The contributors present clinical and experimental observations indicating that heart dysfunction in diabetes can result from cardiomyopathy as well as from atherosclerosis. Attention is given to the role of microangiopathy and focal myocardial injury in the development of diabetic cardiomyopathy. Studies show that altered protein, glycogen, and lipid metabolism, the formation of certain metabolites in cells and defective myocardial calcium homeostasis play a key role in the genesis of heart dysfunction in diabetes, and that diabetic cardiomyopathy is associated with abnormalities in subcellular organelles such as myofibrils, mitochondria, sarcoplasmic reticulum, and sarcolemma.
The major conclusion drawn from these findings is that therapy aimed at restructuring the diabetic myocardium is crucial to improving heart function in diabetic patients.