Transverse aortic constriction (TAC) is an effective technique for inducing left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy in mice. With the use of transthoracic echocardiography and Doppler measurements, we studied the effects of an acute increase in pressure overload on LV contractile performance and peak systolic wall stress index (WSI) at early time points after TAC and the time course of the developmen...

BACKGROUND The metabolic syndrome (MS) represents a cluster of cardiovascular risk factors that act synergistically. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to determine which parameters were independently associated with the global left ventricular (LV) function in subjects with MS estimated with the Tei index. METHODS The study included 234 subjects with MS and 96 controls adjusted by age. MS...

Left ventricular (LV) midwall shortening (MWS) is subnormal in relation to LV circumferential end-systolic stress (ESS) (ESS-corrected MWS) in many hypertensive patients with normal LV chamber function and predicts subsequent morbidity and mortality. However, little is known of the relations of LV midwall function to demographic and metabolic variables or to arterial geometry. Asymptomatic, unm...

BACKGROUND Advanced age is associated with left ventricle (LV) remodeling and impaired cardiac function that may increase the risk of heart failure. Even so, studies regarding age-related cardiac remodeling in a large, asymptomatic Asian population remain limited. MATERIALS AND METHODS We studied 8,410 asymptomatic participants (49.7 ±11.7 y, 38.9% women) in a health evaluation cohort (2004-2...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to identify determinants of 20-year change in left ventricular (LV) mass (LVM) and LV geometry in black and white young adults in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. METHODS AND RESULTS We studied 2426 black and white men and women (54.7% white) aged 43 to 55 years with cardiovascular risk factor data and echocardiogram...

BACKGROUND Pericardial fat has been implicated in the pathogenesis of obesity-related cardiovascular disease. Whether the associations of pericardial fat and measures of cardiac structure and function are independent of the systemic effects of obesity and visceral adiposity has not been fully explored. METHODS AND RESULTS Participants from the Framingham Heart Study (n=997; 54.4% women) under...

Objective: To evaluate the right and left ventricular systolic and diastolic function in middle aged patients with sickle b thalassaemia. Methods: Forty three patients with sickle b thalassaemia were recruited for echocardiographic study while 55 controls, matched for age and sex, served as the control group. Parameters measured included: dimensions and wall thickness of left (LV) and right (RV...

Vascular stiffness has been proposed as a simple method to assess arterial loading conditions of the heart which induce left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). There is some controversy as to whether the relationship of vascular stiffness to LVH is independent of blood pressure, and which measurement of arterial stiffness, augmentation index (AI) or pulse wave velocity (PWV) is best. Carotid pulse ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the right and left ventricular systolic and diastolic function in middle aged patients with sickle beta thalassaemia. METHODS Forty three patients with sickle beta thalassaemia were recruited for echocardiographic study while 55 controls, matched for age and sex, served as the control group. Parameters measured included: dimensions and wall thickness of left (LV) and rig...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to establish the relationship of plasma levels of brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) to physiologic parameters and cardiac morphologic characteristics in a population of young athletes. Our hypothesis is that physiologic and cardiac morphologic characteristics do not predict BNP levels in adolescent athletes. DESIGN Observational study. SETTING Outpatien...