Ties Between Diabetes & Heart Disease Explained

Jan 15, 2008
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A researcher at the University of Virginia Health System is demonstrating why so many people with diabetes may have heart disease. Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine Dr. Zhenqi Liu has shown that in healthy humans, insulin greatly increases blood flow in heart muscle.

The study involved 13 healthy volunteers who had fasted overnight experienced a 41 percent increase in microvascular (smallest blood vessels) blood volume in heart tissue after an insulin infusion.

Now, Dr. Liu is conducting trials focused on insulin resistance, a cardinal feature of type 2 diabetes. He is testing the theory that insulin resistance limits circulation in heart muscle in patients with type 2 diabetes and is the major contributor to the development of heart disease in diabetic patients.

"I hope findings from this project will eventually lead to the development of new ways to diagnose and treat diabetes-related cardiac complications," Dr. Liu says.

His work was recently published in the American Journal of Physiology – Endocrinology and Metabolism.

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