There is a new article in Medscape from December, called
Growth Hormone, Acromegaly, and Heart Failure: An Intricate Triangulation
Clinical Endocrinology, Volume 59, Number 6, 2003
Luigi Sacc�, Raffaele Napoli, Antonio Cittadini
You will have to register to see the entire article, but the registration is free. Here is the link:
Here is a peek...
" (1) GH excess causes acromegaly; (2) acromegaly leads to cardiac disease; and (3) GH is beneficial in models of heart failure.
In the following, an effort will be made: (1) to review the main changes occurring in the acromegalic heart; (2) to examine the genuine effects of GH/IGF-I on cardiac morphology and function in physiology and in heart failure; and (3) to relate these effects to the putative mechanisms responsible for the development and progression of heart failure in general"
"Acromegalic heart disease, in its end-stage, is a congestive heart failure syndrome, resistant to conventional therapy and, in many respects, resembling dilated cardiomyopathy"
"Even in the intermediate stage of acromegaly (after ~5 years of active disease) one can demonstrate the presence of heart dysfunction "
"It must be stressed, however, that in acromegaly the heart shows diastolic dysfunction even when the disease has not yet been complicated by other events, such as hypertension, diabetes, and coronary artery disease "
Interested? Read More....here.
Minnie
