Effects of Mediterranean Diet Intervention in Diabetic Heart Disease

Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a global epidemic associated with inflammation, aggressive atherosclerosis and increased risk for, and severity of, coronary artery disease. Strategies to improve glycemic control with insulin and/or oral hypoglycemic agents have not impacted cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in type II DM patients with known heart disease. The Investigators have found that the typical "Western" diet, which is high in saturated fats, such as the lipid palmitate, but low in unsaturated fats, such as the lipid oleate, results in changes to cell membrane lipid content and disruptions to membrane functional domains -called caveolae- that are associated with insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction. In mice, the investigators found that palmitate induces both systolic and diastolic contractile dysfunction. They have demonstrated, in cell cultures, that oleate prevents palmitate-induced cell dysfunction. This may explain how a diet rich in unsaturated fats and plant-derived flavonoids, such as the "Mediterranean" diet, can counter the adverse cardiovascular effects of DM. This study builds in these prior findings and its central hypothesis is that, in DM, a Mediterranean diet can induce rapid changes in cardiac cell membrane lipid composition and signaling. This is a randomized dietary intervention in DM subjects scheduled for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery, to examine the effects of a short-term modified Mediterranean diet (ModMeD), compared to the standard cardiac DM diet (SCaDMD), on receptor tyrosine kinase signaling, serum and cellular lipid content, and membrane/caveolae function.