New Zealand scientists discover the reason why heart disease kills so many diabetics with a key protein to blame.

Heart disease has long been the biggest killer of diabetics, but a group of New Zealand scientists has solved the mystery as to why.

A team of Otago University researchers have identified a number of harmful changes that occur at a molecular level which specifically impact diabetics before heart disease symptoms even begin to present.

Lead researcher Dr Rajesh Katare said her team found a normal cell process called autophagy becomes deregulated in diabetic hearts, leading to a loss of cardiac cells which regularly eventuates in heart failure.

The breakthrough is significant, with about 60 per cent of all diabetics dying from cardiovascular problems as a result of the metabolism disorder.

Identifying why large numbers of diabetics die from heart disease will help physicians find a way to combat it.

Dr Katare said there was an increase in autophagy through the activity of the Beclin-1 protein so blocking that protein "presents an extremely promising target for new treatments of diabetes-related cardiac disease".

"Given that the growing diabetes epidemic is set to create major global economic and social costs in coming decades, it is very exciting to have opened up a new research avenue that could greatly decrease the diseases burden," she said.

New Zealand has around a quarter of a million people diagnosed with diabetes, while there are more than 365 million diabetics worldwide.
That number is expected to double by 2030.