BACKGROUND Epicardial adipose tissue located close to the atrial wall can change the electric conduction of the left atrium, potentially leading to atrial fibrillation (AF). The aim of this study was to assess whether an increased atrial adipose tissue mass posterior to the left atrium is related to AF independent of demographical and cardiovascular risk factors. METHODS AND RESULTS Two hundr...

BACKGROUND Relative quantification is a commonly used method for assessing gene expression, however its accuracy and reliability is dependent upon the choice of an optimal endogenous control gene, and such choice cannot be made a priori. There is limited information available on suitable reference genes to be used for studies involving human epicardial adipose tissue. The objective of the curre...

Background Epicardial adipose tissue, aortic stiffness and myocardial fibrosis have been linked to cardiovascular risk and disease; however, often different modalities are used for their measurement. Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) may be used to determine these parameters in a single examination by the measurement of epicardial fat volumes (EFV), aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) as a paramete...

I n this issue of iJACC, Mahabadi et al. (1) describe a parallel increase of subclinical atherosclerosis and epicardial adipose tissue (EAT). Two prior publications (2,3) reported a similar association, and together with experimental models, they support the role of EAT in atherosclerosis inception and progression. In an experimental porcine model, the investigators stripped the epicardial fat ...

BACKGROUND Dunnigan type Familial Partial Lipodystrophy (FPLD) is characterized by loss of subcutaneous fat from the limbs and excessive accumulation on the visceral adipose tissue (VAT). Affected individuals have insulin resistance (IR), diabetes, dyslipidemia and early cardiovascular (CV) events, due to their imbalanced distribution of total body fat (TBF). Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) is ...

Recent studies focused on epicardial fat, formerly relatively neglected component of the heart, have elucidated some of its key roles. It possesses several properties that can distinguish it from other adipose tissue depots. Its unique anatomical location in the heart predisposes the epicardial fat to be an important player in the physiological and biochemical regulation of cardiac homeostasis....

Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) is ectopic visceral fat surrounding the heart that is located close to the coronary arteries. Excessive EAT has been reported to be associated with known cardiovascular risk factors 1, 2). Moreover, several investigators have shown that quantity of EAT can be a marker for the presence and severity of coronary artery disease (CAD) 3-6). Computed tomography and Mag...

OBJECTIVE Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) is proposed as a cardiovascular risk marker in non-uremic subjects. However, little is known about its role in patients with higher cardiovascular risk profile such as chronic kidney disease. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between EAT and several cardiovascular surrogate markers (coronary artery calcification (CAC), arterial s...

objective(s) bone marrow is the traditional source of human multipotent mesenchymal stem cells (mscs), but adipose tissue appears to be an alternative and more readily available source. in this study, rat adipose-derived stem cells (adscs) were induced to differentiate into schwann-like cells and compared with rat bone marrow stem cells (bmscs) for their schwann-like cells differentiation poten...