Sugar overload killing hearts
Groundbreaking UC research featured on WISH-TV
Two in five people will be told they have diabetes during their lifetime. And people who have diabetes are twice as likely to develop heart disease. One of the deadliest dangers? Diabetic cardiomyopathy. But groundbreaking University of Cincinnati research may lead to stopping and even reversing the damage before it’s too late. The research was recently featured on WISH-TV.
“It will reduce the ability of the heart to pump the blood efficiently to the rest of the body,” said Konstantinos Drosatos, PhD, professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology and Neurobiology in the College of Medicine.
That impacts a person’s ability to walk, sleep, even breathe.
“You can see the heart as an engine. If we had to go to the gas station to fuel our heart daily, we would need about six to seven gallons of gas per day," said Drosatos.
While the heart burns a lot of fuel, it’s not built for overload. Too much sugar in the heart weakens the way it pumps. That’s why Drosatos is studying what happens inside heart cells when they’re flooded with glucose.
“How this protein is activated and by glucose that is taken up by heart, and how a transporter of glucose, which actually imports glucose in the heart, plays a role in that,” said Drosatos.
The protein is GLUT1: the gatekeeper for sugar entering heart cells. In diabetes, GLUT1 goes into overdrive, flooding the heart with glucose. That overload then triggers a protein called KLF5, what researchers call a “toxic switch” within the heart. But when researchers blocked GLUT1 in diabetic animal models, the damage stopped and even reversed.
“The end game here will be to see if by blocking the glucose import we can affect certain molecules that contribute to the disease,” said Drosatos.
The goal is to develop new drugs to stop diabetes from damaging the heart before it’s too late.
Featured image at top: Blood drop examination tool kit, blood sugar tracker record and heart with doctor's stethoscope. Photo/iStock/Chinnapong.
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November 10, 2025
Two in five people will be told they have diabetes during their lifetime. And people who have diabetes are twice as likely to develop heart disease. One of the deadliest dangers? Diabetic cardiomyopathy. But groundbreaking University of Cincinnati research hopes to stop and even reverse the damage before it’s too late.