0000000001279881
AUTHOR
T. Munzel
Vascular effects and safety of dalcetrapib in patients with or at risk of coronary heart disease: the dal-VESSEL randomized clinical trial
Aims High-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) is inversely associated with cardiovascular (CV) events and thus an attractive therapeutic target. However, in spite of marked elevations in HDL-C, the first cholesterol transport protein (CETP) inhibitor torcetrapib raised blood pressure (BP), impaired endothelial function, and increased CV mortality and morbidity. Dalcetrapib is a novel molecule acting on CETP with a different chemical structure to torcetrapib. As HDL stimulates nitric oxide (NO), suppresses inflammation, and exerts protective CV effects, we investigated the effects of dalcetrapib on endothelial function, blood pressure, inflammatory markers, and lipids in patients with, o…
Haplotypes of the caspase-1 gene, plasma caspase-1 levels, and cardiovascular risk.
Caspase-1 processes the interleukin (IL)-1β and IL-18 inactive precursors to the biologically active cytokines that are known to have proatherogenic effects. The present study investigated the genetic variability of the CASP1 gene and plasma levels of caspase-1 in relation to cardiovascular risk. In Europeans, 3 tag SNPs captured 4 common haplotypes of the CASP1 gene. Among these, the A in6 allele of the G+7/in6A polymorphism was less frequent in 246 cases with myocardial infarction and a parental history of disease than in 253 controls free of familial history of disease (0.13±0.02 versus 0.20±0.02; P =0.005). However, in a larger case/control study (n=1774), these effects are borderline …