Obesity Cardiomyopathy: Evidence, Mechanisms and Therapeutic Implications

Physiol Rev. 2021 May 5. doi: 10.1152/physrev.00030.2020. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThe prevalence of heart failure is on the rise and imposes a major health threat, in part, due to the rapidly increased prevalence of overweight and obesity. To this point, epidemiological, clinical and experimental evidence supports the existence of a unique disease entity termed "obesity cardiomyopathy", which develops independent of hypertension, coronary heart disease and other heart diseases. Our contemporary review evaluates the evidence for this pathological condition, examines putative responsible mechanisms, and discusses therapeutic options for this disorder. Clinical findings have consolidated the presence of left ventricular dysfunction in obesity. Experimental investigations have uncovered pathophysiological changes in myocardial structure and function in genetically-predisposed and diet-induced obesity. Indeed, contemporary evidence consolidates a wide array of cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the etiology of obesity cardiomyopathy including adipose tissue dysfunction, systemic inflammation, metabolic disturbances (insulin resistance, abnormal glucose transport, spillover of free fatty acids, lipotoxicity, and amino acid derangement), altered intracellular especially mitochondrial Ca2+ homeostasis, oxidative stress, autophagy/mitophagy defect, myocardial fibrosis, dampened coronary flow reserve, coronary microvascular disease (microangiopathy), and endothelial imp...
Source: Physiological Reviews - Category: Physiology Authors: Source Type: research