Key Points
• Obesity, a growing health problem worldwide, contributes to the onset and/or development of heart disease. Even when uncomplicated by hypertension or diabetes, obesity triggers cardiac maladaptive remodeling, which plays a major role in the progression of various heart diseases to heart failure.
• Major contributors to the obesity-induced maladaptive remodeling include alterations in myocyte shape and number, and extracellular matrix, resulting in cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis.
• Leptin, an adipokine over-produced in obesity, is emerging as a novel mechanistic link between obesity and cardiovascular disease by directly attenuating systolic contraction, inducing or preventing hypertrophy, and inducing mitogenesis in primary cardiomyocytes.
• Once the role of leptin in development of cardiac interstitial fibrosis and diastolic dysfunction is defined, leptin modulation may provide an avenue for treating obesity- and other hyperleptinemic-related cardiac dysfunction.
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Zibadi, S., Larson, D.F., Watson, R.R. (2010). Leptin and Obesity: Role in Cardiac Structure and Dysfunction. In: De Meester, F., Zibadi, S., Watson, R. (eds) Modern Dietary Fat Intakes in Disease Promotion. Nutrition and Health. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-571-2_12
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