Cardiac steatosis in diabetes mellitus: a 1H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy study.

Background: The risk of heart failure in type 2 diabetes mellitus is greater than can be accounted for by hypertension and coronary artery disease. Rodent studies indicate that in obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus, lipid overstorage in cardiac myocytes produces lipotoxic intermediates that cause apoptosis, which leads to heart failure. In humans with diabetes mellitus, cardiac steatosis previously has been demonstrated in explanted hearts of patients with end-stage nonischemic cardiomyopathy.