The role of mitochondria in cardiovascular diseases

[[abstract]]The role of mitochondria in cardiovascular diseases is receiving ever growing attention. As a central player in the regulation of cellular metabolism and a powerful controller of cellular fate, mitochondria appear to comprise an interesting potential therapeutic target. With the development of DNA sequencing methods, mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) became a subject of intensive study, since many directly lead to mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, deficient energy production and, as a result, cell dysfunction and death. Many mtDNA mutations were found to be associated with chronic human diseases, including cardiovascular disorders. In particular, 17 mtDNA mutations were reported to be associated with ischemic heart disease in humans. In this review, we discuss the involvement of mitochondrial dysfunction in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and describe the mtDNA mutations identified so far that are associated with atherosclerosis and its risk factors

Contributions of risk factors and medical care to cardiovascular mortality trends.

Ischaemic heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) lead to 17.5 million deaths worldwide per year. Taking into account population ageing, CVD death rates are decreasing steadily both in regions with reliable trend data and globally. The declines in high-income countries and some Latin American countries have been ongoing for decades without slowing. These positive trends have broadly coincided with, and benefited from, declines in smoking and physiological risk factors, such as blood pressure and serum cholesterol levels. These declines have also coincided with, and benefited from, improvements in medical care, including primary prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of acute CVDs, as well as post-hospital care, especially in the past 40 years. These variables, however, explain neither why the decline began when it did, nor the similarities and differences in the start time and rate of the decline between countries and sexes. In Russia and some other former Soviet countries, changes in volume and patterns of alcohol consumption have caused sharp rises in CVD mortality since the early 1990s. An important challenge in reaching firm conclusions about the drivers of these remarkable international trends is the paucity of time-trend data on CVD incidence, risk factors throughout the life-course, and clinical care