New Study Finds Cholesterol Pathway Disruption May Drive Heart Cell Damage in Dilated Cardiomyopathy

A closer look at what makes the heart weak

Scientists have just found another clue about what causes dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a serious condition where the main pumping chamber of the heart stretches out and weakens.

The discovery goes into the secret machinery of heart cells, not just how to treat the symptoms of a failing heart. It may alter the way we treat the disease altogether, in focusing on protecting the heart muscle before the damage occurs.”

What occurs to an enlarged heart?

Imagine a healthy heart muscle as a strong rubber band that springs back easily to move blood throughout the body. In DCM the muscle becomes stretched out and thin, like an elastic band that has been used too much and lost its bounce.

The heart has to work much harder because it can no longer pump effectively. This weakness over time dramatically increases the risk of heart failure, dangerous irregular heart rhythms and blood clots. It can be caused by genetics in a family, a past viral infection or an overactive immune system, but sometimes it happens for no apparent reason.

The new clue: a breakdown within the cells

We usually hear about cholesterol in the context of clogged arteries and diet. But this study was looking at something very different: how cholesterol is used as a building block inside individual heart cells.

In a healthy cell, cholesterol helps keep the structure of the cell intact and helps the cell make energy. When the internal pathways that process and shuffle this cholesterol break down, the researchers found, the heart cells are under intense stress. Without this internal balance, cells lose energy, become structurally damaged and die. And this further weakens the heart muscle.

Implication for Medication and Treatment

That discovery gives scientists a new goal for new medicines.

Shielding the Cells In the future, treatments may be designed to fix this internal cellular breakdown so that the heart muscle doesn’t weaken in the first place, rather than simply prescribing drugs to help a weak heart pump a little easier.

Keep Taking Your Medications – Medical professionals emphasise this internal cell activity has nothing to do with the cholesterol numbers you see on a regular blood test. If you are taking cholesterol-lowering drugs like statins, it is essential that you take them exactly as prescribed, because they protect your cardiovascular system in a completely different way.

This is a very exciting step forward, but the research is still in its early laboratory stages. Now scientists are gearing up to test whether repairing these internal cell pathways might actually slow or stop heart damage with the ultimate goal of moving towards human clinical trials.