Introduction
Dr Tobias MacCarthy
In 1736, Benjamin Franklin declared that ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’. With an ever-growing incidence of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, compounded by overwhelmed health services, this principle remains central to healthcare policies today. Diabetes has long been known to be associated with cardiovascular disease, principally heart failure, and the two are interlinked through mechanisms including increased oxidative stress, which leads to myocardial inflammation and fibrosis. There is now increasing focus on the concept of the ‘metabolic syndrome’ as an umbrella term
