Failing hearts switch fuels as their oxygen-based energy supply drops
In short: A review of cardiac energy metabolism describes how the failing heart faces an energy shortfall, driven mainly by a drop in mitochondrial oxidative capacity. To compensate, the heart relies more on glycolysis, burns less glucose and fewer amino acids for fuel, and turns increasingly to ketones, while fat-burning rises or falls depending on the type of heart failure present.
These shifts make the heart pump less efficiently for the oxygen it consumes, and the authors link them to changes in gene activity and cellular redox balance. They note that drugs targeting these pathways might help restore cardiac efficiency.
As a review, it draws on existing studies rather than new experiments, and the metabolic pattern varies with the type of heart failure and conditions such as diabetes or obesity, limiting how far any single description applies.
Why it matters: Understanding how the heart switches fuels during failure could help guide future metabolism-targeted treatments.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Research: Lopaschuk et al. (2021). Cardiac Energy Metabolism in Heart Failure. Circulation Research.
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