Grant: Project Grant

Heart attacks resulting in dead and damaged tissue within the heart are the most common cause of premature death in the developed world. Major advances in medicine have reduced the number of people that die immediately after a heart attack; however, the death rate due to heart failure - a gradual disease in which a person's heart eventually cannot pump enough blood to sustain the body - in the years following a heart attack or other heart injury remains high. In fact, of people who are diagnosed with heart failure, 30-40% will die within one year. New methods to understand why the heart fails, and to improve diagnosis and treatment of the disease, are urgently needed to improve this situation. Recently, evidence has suggested that metabolic changes (i.e. changes in the way the heart produces chemical energy from the fuel sources from our diet) contribute to tissue damage and the progression towards heart failure. There is some evidence that drugs that make metabolism more efficient can improve the heart failure patient's chances of survival and quality of life.