Vitamin A for the heart: progress for cardiac hypertrophy regression?

摘要

most often, hypertrophy of the heart is the response to a variety of stimuli such as arterial hypertension, ischemia, or valvular heart disease to name only a few. However, cardiac growth may also result from sarcomeric gene mutations (6). A common feature and therefore hallmark of cardiac hypertrophy is increased left ventricular weight through which the heart tries to compensate increased wall tension (Laplace's law). Unfortunately, chronic stress for the heart also involves a remodeling process including fibrosis, apoptosis, and finally chamber dilatation progressing to congestive heart failure (6) with poor prognosis.