“Because the heart is the
body’s number-one consumer of fat, when it starts using fat differently, there
are consequences throughout the entire body,”
Researchers at the
University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine will study gender
differences in how the heart uses and stores fat—its main energy source—and how
changes in fat metabolism play a role in heart disease, under a new $2 million,
4-year grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
When stressed, the heart
changes how it uses fuel for energy. These changes may play a major role in the
development of heart disease and are different in men and women, says E.
Douglas Lewandowski, director of the UIC Center for Cardiovascular Research.
The changes occur long before any symptoms, he said, and may be key to early
diagnosis and treatment.
Lewandowski, who is
principal investigator on the grant, uses imaging techniques he developed to
see fat molecules and the rate at which they are being burned in beating
hearts. In healthy hearts, the balance between using fat for energy and storing
it in tiny droplets within the cells is in a dynamic equilibrium.
When a female heart is
stressed, such as through chronic disease like hypertension, it becomes much
less efficient at metabolizing fat, Lewandowski says. When a male heart is
stressed, it starts using more sugar as fuel. These changes in the heart can
also affect how fat is stored and used in other parts of the body.
sciencedaily.com
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