The gel-like layer – called the glycocalyx – lines the inside of blood vessels and acts like a sieve to regulate how nutrients move from the blood to the heart and other tissues in the body.

Professor Simon Satchell, Dr Yan Qiu and their team at the University of Bristol looked at mice with type 1 and type 2 diabetes and discovered that the glycocalyx in the small blood vessels of the heart became damaged. 

Scientists are now one step closer to better understanding why some people with diabetes develop heart failure, for which there is no cure. Often these people don’t have problems such as high blood pressure or coronary artery disease, which often lead to heart failure. Instead, they have problems with the small blood vessels supplying the heart muscle. 

Read the full University of Bristol press release

Paper: Endothelial glycocalyx is damaged in diabetic cardiomyopathy: angiopoietin 1 restores glycocalyx and improves diastolic function in mice' by Simon C. Satchell et al. in Diabetologia.