Grant: Foundation Grant

Although advancements in therapies to treat cardiovascular disease have reduced the number of deaths of patients with heart disease, these treatments/interventions have ultimately increased the number of people who eventually go on to develop another clinical condition called heart failure. Simply stated, clinical heart failure is a condition that is defined by poor heart function that prevents the heart from pumping enough blood to the rest of the body for proper organ function. As a result, heart failure patients have a very poor quality of life. Although heart failure is often a "chronic" condition, the chances of dying at one year following diagnosis are between 20-30%, even with our most state-of-the-art treatments. Due to the short life expectancy and poor quality of life of the heart failure patient, the increasing amount of people developing heart failure is a major medical concern. A long-standing concept in heart failure is that the failing heart has defects in specific processes that allow the heart to generate enough energy to function normally. Since scientists already know that the failing heart is starved for energy, a new approach to treating heart failure may reside in improving the ability of the heart to use fuels appropriately and thus restore the amount of energy being produced by the heart. The proposed research will investigate what processes involved in energy production are decreased in the failing heart, and will determine if normalizing these processes can improve the function of the heart. We will use this information to develop novel approaches to treating heart failure. Given the accumulating information regarding the occurrence and poor health outcomes associated with heart failure, there is need to identify additional treatment options for this condition in a large and growing population of Canadians.