Myocardial energy starvation and ketone metabolism in patients with type 2 diabetes

Diabetes increases the risk of heart failure. Once the heart failure is established, only one in five patients survive beyond five years. This high risk of death is alarming and highlights the importance of preventing the development of heart failure in diabetes patients. One efficient way to treat or prevent heart failure is increasing the energy available for heart muscle to pump. For this we first need to better understand why diabetes patients have low energy levels in their heart. Moreover, in diabetes, heart muscle uses more ketone as an energy fuel,but it is unknown if this change aims to improve energy generation.Seeking to answer these questions, using MR scans, heart biopsy samples and special blood tests, I will pursue the problem of excess heart failure risk in diabetes, exploring new and more efficient treatment options to mitigate this risk, with results relevant for 400 million people living with diabetes.