Could we use new diabetes medicines to reduce damage caused by heart attack?

Sodium/glucose transporters in the heart and their role in hyperglycaemic exacerbation of ischaemia/ reperfusion injury following acute myocardial infarction

A heart attack occurs when an artery supplying blood to the heart becomes blocked. The heart muscle is then deprived of essential oxygen and nutrient supplies and, if left untreated, will begin to die. During a heart attack, up to half of patients have raised blood sugar levels, regardless of whether they are diabetic or not. This is important because these people fare far worse – suffering greater heart damage and worse survival rates. Dr Robert Bell and his team are looking for ways to reduce the amount of heart muscle that dies as a result of a heart attack, by controlling sugar levels. A new generation of blood sugar lowering medications, called SGLT inhibitors, have recently been shown to reduce heart disease deaths in high-risk diabetic patients. In this project, the team will test whether this diabetic medicine may also be capable of reducing the excess heart injury associated with high blood sugar during a heart attack. They will delve deeper into the way that SGLT inhibitors act on the heart. By working out whether SGLT inhibitors can be used to prevent heart muscle death, these researchers will lay the foundations for wider use of these diabetic medications and could improve survival rates and long-term health in a vulnerable group of patients.