Coronary Atherosclerosis Is Associated With Macrophage Polarization in Epicardial Adipose Tissue

TL;DR: M1 and M2 macrophage populations are present throughout atherogenesis and these subsets display disparity when it comes to their prevalence in morphological compartments of the vessel wall, warranting continued investigation into the functional implications of polarization populations in human atherosclerosis.

TL;DR: Measurements of epicardial fat have several important applications in the clinical setting: accurate measurement of its thickness or volume is correlated with visceral adiposity, coronary artery disease, the metabolic syndrome, fatty liver disease and cardiac changes.

TL;DR: Epicardial fat is associated with fatal and nonfatal coronary events in the general population independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors and complements information from cardiac computed tomography above the CAC score.

TL;DR: Comparison to macrophage internalized with ROS-responsive NPs, as a live-cell based drug delivery system for treatment of atherosclerosis, suggests that cell membrane coated drug delivery approach is likely more suitable for dealing with an inflammatory disease than the live- cell approach.

TL;DR: The identification of inflamed lesions within the coronary circulation, however, remains elusive owing to small plaque size, cardiac and respiratory motion, and lack of a suitable specific nuclear tracer.

TL;DR: Increases in epicardial PVAT leptin exacerbate coronary endothelial dysfunction in MetS via a PKC-&bgr;-dependent pathway, which implicate PVAT-derived leptin as a potential contributor to coronary atherogenesis in metS.

TL;DR: The findings that elevated leptin plasma levels in patients that are obese might exert beneficial effects on the coronary endothelium to counterbalance the adverse effects of increases in body weight on coronary circulatory function should be tested.

TL;DR: P plausible mechanisms for effects of combination therapy to reduce inflammation, improve endothelial dysfunction, and decrease insulin resistance in atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, and hypertension in the context of insulin-resistant states including diabetes, obesity, and the metabolic syndrome are reviewed.