Copyright © 2006, European Society of Cardiology
Unravelling the cardioprotective mechanism of action of estrogens
Dept. Biomedical Sciences, Division of Physiology, University of Stellenbosch, P.O. Box 19063, 7505 Tygerberg, Rep. South Africa
* Tel.: +27 21 9389392. Email address: jamool@sun.ac.za
Received 3 January 2006; accepted 5 January 2006
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
See article by Xu et al. [1] (pages 836–844) in this issue.
Cardiovascular diseases are the major cause of morbidity and mortality in the developed world, and are increasing in significance in the developing world. Elucidation of the mechanisms involved in preventing the development of coronary artery disease and protecting the myocardium against the deleterious consequences of myocardial ischaemia therefore stays an important research goal. The sex hormone estrogen has received increased attention for its ability to exert cardioprotective effects against atherosclerosis, but it has become clear that estrogen also exerts a direct protective effect against ischaemia/reperfusion injury on the myocardium. In this edition of Cardiovascular Research Xu et al. [1] provide evidence for decreased TNF
production during ischaemia/reperfusion in the mechanism of estrogen-mediated cardiac protection.
There is an abundance of scientific evidence for the protective effect of estrogen against atherosclerosis, such as short-term vasodilating effects as well as long-term