Individuals with diabetes are at a significantly greater risk of developing cardioymyopathy and heart failure despite adjusting for concomitant risks such as coronary artery disease or hypertension. This has led to the increased recognition of a distinct disease process termed as "diabetic cardiomyopathy." In this article, we perform an extensive review of the pathogenesis and treatment of this disease. From a clinical perspective, physicians should be aware of this entity, and early screening should be considered because physical evidence of early diabetic cardiomyopathy could be difficult to detect. Early detection of the disease should prompt intensification of glycemic control, concomitant risk factors, use of pharmacologic agents such as β-blockers and renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system antagosists. From a research perspective, more studies on myocardial tissue from diabetic patients are needed. Clinical trials to evaluate the development of diabetic cardiomyopathy and fibrosis in early stages of the disease, as well as clinical trials of pharmacologic intervention in patients specifically with diabetic cardiomyopathy, need to be conducted.
Published by Elsevier Inc.