Iron scavenging and suppression of collagen cross-linking underlie antifibrotic effects of carnosine in the heart with obesity.

Oral consumption of histidyl dipeptides such as l-carnosine has been suggested to promote cardiometabolic health, although therapeutic mechanisms remain incompletely understood. We recently reported that oral consumption of a carnosine analog suppressed markers of fibrosis in liver of obese mice, but whether antifibrotic effects of carnosine extend to the heart is not known, nor are the mechanisms by which carnosine is acting. Here, we investigated whether oral carnosine was able to mitigate the adverse cardiac remodeling associated with diet induced obesity in a mouse model of enhanced lipid peroxidation (i.