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Weight loss benefited myocardium of patients with diabetes

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TORONTO — Modest weight loss can lead to better visceral adipose tissue dietary fat uptake and decreased buildup of dietary fat in the myocardium in patients with impaired glucose tolerance, according to data presented here.

André Carpentier, MD, FRCPC, professor in the department of medicine, division of endocrinology, at the University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, described a noninvasive approach to assess postprandial fatty acid tissue partition to clarify the connection between excess dietary fat and type 2 diabetes.

“A number of investigators have shown that there is impairment in fatty acid trapping in the adipose tissues in diabetic patients,” Carpentier said in an interview with Endocrine Today.

He and colleagues asked nondiabetic patients with impaired glucose tolerance to ingest fatty acid tracers so that investigators could reconstitute the images using PET to see where the dietary fat was being absorbed. “The assumption has been that all the lean organs are affected,” Carpentier said.

Specifically, the researchers used the positron-emitting fatty acid analogue [18F]-fluoro-6-thia-heptadecanoic (FTHA) to determine the distribution in patients before and after a 12-month weight-loss intervention.

The investigators observed that the FTHA mean standard uptake value at 6 hours was significantly reduced in the myocardium of patients after the intervention, whereas it was higher in perirenal adipose tissue. Patients’ left ventricular ejection fraction also improved after the intervention.

According to Carpentier, the study results suggest myocardial contractile dysfunction even before patients have developed diabetes.

Future investigation will aim at obtaining a more enhanced view of dietary fatty acid distribution in patients, he said.

For more information:

• Carpentier A. #25b. Presented at: Annual Meeting of the Canadian Diabetes Association/Canadian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism; Oct. 26-29, 2011; Toronto.

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