Finding new ways to help people with heart disease avoid muscle weakness

How much does microvascular rarefaction contribute to skeletal muscle fatigability and impair remodelling capacity?

In many people with heart disease, daily living can be a challenge. This is not entirely due to the heart not working correctly - lost or blocked small blood vessels may also increase muscle fatigue, and contribute to muscle wasting and weakness. Understanding how muscle wasting and weakness happens in people with coronary heart disease may reveal new ways to improve their quality of life. Professor Stuart Egginton and colleagues will study how losing or blocking small blood vessels called microvessels and capillaries affects how muscles work and contributes to muscle wasting in rats, including which molecules are involved. They will study how much muscle growth is impaired, and if the outcome is worse in rats which have enlarged hearts because of high blood pressure. They will also examine muscle biopsies from patients with chronic heart failure to find out if we can predict the effects. This research will give us new insight into blood vessel problems associated with various forms of heart disease, that influence how a person can undertake normal physical activity. It may reveal new and better ways to improve blood supply to muscles, such as better exercise regimes.