Rheumatoid arthritis affects left ventricular mass: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Cardiovascular disease represents one of the most important extra-articular causes of morbidity and mortality in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Evidences showed that several cardiac structures can be affected during the course of the disease as well as abnormalities of left ventricular diastolic filling. Contrasting data are available about left ventricular mass (LVM) involvement in patients asymptomatic for cardiovascular disease.

Serum uric acid and 1-h postload glucose in essential hypertension.

Objective: Subjects who are normal glucose tolerant (NGT) are considered at low risk, even if a plasma glucose value ≥155 mg/dL for the 1-h postload plasma glucose during an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) is able to identify NGT subjects at high risk for type 2 diabetes and subclinical organ damage. Hyperuricemia is associated with several risk factors for cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, insulin resistance, and diabetes. However, it is unknown whether uric acid (UA) is able to affect 1-h postload plasma glucose in hypertensive NGT subjects.

Impaired endothelial function in never-treated hypertensive subjects carrying the Arg972 polymorphism in the insulin receptor substrate-1 gene.

Some cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypertension and insulin resistance, are associated with endothelial dysfunction. Insulin regulates both in vitro and in vivo expression of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) via a pathway involving insulin receptor substrate-1 (IRS-1) and phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase. Recently, we found that human endothelial cells obtained from carriers of the Arg(972) IRS-1 polymorphism exhibited reduced eNOS expression in response to chronic exposure to insulin.