Researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston state that excessive consumption of sugar can lead to heart diseases including heart failure.
Overload of sugar is known to have many adverse effects on a person's health and researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston have just added another health hazard to this already long existing list. According to the authors of a new study, excessive consumption of sugar can lead to heart diseases including heart failure. Sugar contains a small molecule known as the glucose metabolite glucose 6-phosphate (G6P), which when taken in large quantities affects the muscles leading to poor pump functions and heart failure.
"Treatment is difficult. Physicians can give diuretics to control the fluid, and beta-blockers and ACE inhibitors to lower the stress on the heart and allow it to pump more economically," said Heinrich Taegtmeyer, M.D., D.Phil., principal investigator and professor of cardiology at the UTHealth Medical School in a press release. "But we still have these terrible statistics and no new treatment for the past 20 years."
The study was conducted on animal models. Tests were also conducted on tissues taken from patients at the Texas Heart Institute who had a piece of the heart muscle removed in order to implant a left ventricle assist device, Both these tests led to the discovery of the damage caused by G6P.
Taegtmeyer says the case is even worse for people suffering from high blood pressure and other diseases since the muscles in the heart are already stressed and the intake of excessive sugar only aggravates the situation. The author of the study also states that this new finding could help open opportunities for the development of new medicines and treatments for the disorder.
