Ischaemic heart disease - more than just lipids

Vasopressin and ischaemic heart disease: more than coronary vasoconstriction?

During advanced vasodilatory shock, arginine vasopressin (AVP) is increasingly used to restore blood pressure and thus to reduce catecholamine requirements. The AVP-related rise in mean arterial pressure is due to systemic vasoconstriction, which, depending on the infusion rate, may also reduce coronary blood flow despite an increased coronary perfusion pressure. In a murine model of myocardial...

More than just vanilla.

More than just an engine: the heart regulates body weight.

Arecent study published in Cell may represent a paradigm shift in the way we look at cardiac metabolism: The study identifies the heart as an endocrine organ that regulates body weight. It raises two important questions: What would be the “slimming factor” released by the heart that regulates fuel homeostasis in distant organs? What are the possible mechanisms directing metabolic energy to eith...

Hypertension in heart transplant recipients: more than just cyclosporine.

Cardiac transplantation offers definitive therapy for selected patients with end-stage heart failure and thus provides significant improvements in survival in these recipients. Heart transplantation comes with a cost, however, resulting from the actual transplantation procedure, the subsequent allo-immune response to the transplant and the immunosuppressive medications required to keep the allo...

Oxidative stress in heart failure. More than just damage.

Chronic heart failure (CHF) continues to cause substantial morbidity and mortality despite major therapeutic advances, such as the use of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and -blockers. The main causes of CHF today are ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and hypertension. Extensive experimental and clinical studies over the last 20 years have established that a fundamental process in th...