Key words: stiff heart, heart failure, heart capillaries, diabetes medication

"A novel paradigm for heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. Working towards understanding the pathology of HFpEF"

At this moment, more than 230,000 people in the Netherlands suffer from heart failure. More than half of these patients have a thickened and stiff heart muscle. In this condition the heart cannot fill well with blood. This causes patients to become tired quickly and very short-of-breath, which has a severe impact on their daily lives. An aging population and an increase of diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure will result in a further increase of patients with a stiff hard. Currently, there is no treatment for this condition. This research shows that a medicine is currently used to treat diabetes also prevents the stiffening of the heart. More research is need to determine whether this is the miracle cure for treating a stiff heart.

Financed by the Foundation for Scientific Education – personal aspiration fund, ERA-net CVD LYMIT-DIS, Boehringer Ingelheim, Dutch Hart Foundation