Premature Aging and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: an Increased Risk of Cardiomyopathy?

The potential clinical implications of this study are to optimise the selection of a population at risk for developing a diabetic cardiomyopathy among diabetic patients in order to develop early therapeutic strategies to prevent the left ventricular remodelling. Therefore, the originality of this project is to hypothesize that : * Diabetes mellitus is often associated with a premature aging syndrome * Cellular senescence may potentiate the mechanisms that are involved in decreasing myocardial contractility in DM and, * DM associated to premature aging may increase the risk of developing a cardiomyopathy Thus, the modulation of telomerase activity and the control of telomere length, together with the attenuation of the formation of reactive oxygen species, might represent important new targets in order to develop therapeutic tools in prevention of diabetic cardiomyopathy.