Role of Leptin in the Development of Cardiac Hypertrophy in Experimental Animals and Humans

Abstract

To the Editor: Barouch et al1 recently published a well-designed study demonstrating that left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) occurs in mice that are either leptin-deficient ( ob/ob ) or leptin-resistant ( db/db ). They also found that systemic administration of leptin to the leptin-deficient animals attenuated LVH more than would be predicted by the leptin-induced hypophagia and weight loss. These observations suggest that leptin may have a direct inhibitory effect on cardiac hypertrophy.1 We have recently examined the association between systemic leptin levels and cardiovascular indexes in a population of healthy obese and lean men.2,3 In addition to showing that …