Dietary n-3 fatty acids, particularly eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid, are important nutrients through the life cycle. Evidence from observational, clinical, animal, and in vitro studies indicates a beneficial role of n-3 fatty acids in the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease. Although the precise mechanisms are still unclear, clinical and preclinical studies indi...

Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) are chemically inert materials and have been mainly used for imaging applications and drug deliveries. However, the possibility whether they can be used as therapeutic drugs themselves has not yet been explored. We reported here that Fe2O3 nanoparticles (NPs) can protect hearts from ischemic damage at the animal, tissue and cell level. The cardioprotective activ...

Over the past two decades, we have seen a gradual reduction in mortality from myocardial infarction due in a large part to the advent of revascularization and other cardioprotective strategies. However, myocardial infarction is still the most common cause of morbidity, related primarily to the loss of left ventricular function and mortality. A host of novel strategies are being examined to limi...

The consumption of fruits and vegetables, as well as foods enriched in bioactive compounds and nutraceuticals, has increased due to consumers' interest in the relevance of food composition for human health. Considerable recent interest has focused on bioactive phenolic compounds in grape, as they possess many biological activities, such as antioxidant, cardioprotective, anticancer, anti-inflamm...

Many of the originally identified cardiovascular 'growth factors' have been demonstrated to exert a diverse variety of actions within the cardiovascular system, the majority of which are unrelated to their initially proposed mechanism of action. Interestingly, several of these growth factors have been demonstrated to protect the cardiomyocyte from the detrimental effects of acute ischaemia-repe...

Mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of ischemia/reperfusion injury are particularly complex, multifactorial and highly interconnected. A complex and entangled interaction is also emerging between platelet function, antiplatelet drugs, coronary diseases and ischemia/reperfusion injury, especially in diabetic conditions. Here we briefly summarize features of antiplatelet therapy in type 2 diab...

Diabetic patients suffer from a high rate of cardiovascular events and such risk increases with HbA1c. However, lowering HbA1c does not appear to yield the same benefit on macrovascular endpoints, as observed for microvascular endpoints. As the number of glucose-lowering medications increases, clinicians have to consider several open questions in the management of type 2 diabetes, one of which ...

The 4-ACGC isolated from BP was prepared to investigate the cardioprotective effects on attenuating chronic heart failure in vivo and in vitro. A chronic heart failure (CHF) rat model was established to investigate the cardioprotective effects of 4-ACGC. From this, several cardiac function indexes were recorded. The inflammatory markers including tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), Interleukin-6 (...

Macrophages have important physiological roles and display a high degree of heterogeneous phenotypes in response to a variety of stimuli. In particular, the spectrum of alternatively activated macrophages has been a focus because many lines of evidence indicate a cardioprotective role for this macrophage phenotype. This phenotype is controlled in part by opposing nuclear transcription factors i...

Production of trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) via the gut microbiota has recently been proposed as an important pathophysiological mechanism linking ingestion of 'unhealthy foods', such as beef (containing carnitine) and eggs (containing choline), and the development of atherosclerosis. Hence, TMAO has gained attention as a novel biomarker for cardiovascular disease. However, fish and seafood con...