Inflammatory mediators in diet-induced cardiac dysfunction

The studies in this thesis are performed to provide additional and improved insight into the effects and interplay of dietary lipids and metabolic inflammation on cardiac performance in the presence or absence of atherosclerosis and myocardial infarctions (MI). We show that high-fat diet feeding has mild but significant detrimental effects on cardiac function. In contrast to our expectations, this effect is not likely to be mediated by Toll-like receptor 2 or Toll-like receptor 4. Also, we demonstrated in mice that high-fat diet feeding does not significantly aggravate cardiac dysfunction post-MI. Deficiency of RP105, a modulator of inflammation, improved cardiac function after induction of MI. In addition, ABCA1 had adverse effects on cardiac function post-MI, possibly via a reduced activation of immune cells. This confirms the important role of inflammation in recovery after MI. Furthermore, we elucidated a possible reason for the failure of niacin in recent clinical trials and found that niacin__s anti-atherogenic properties are most potent by lowering LDL-cholesterol on top of statin treatment. Altogether, these results provide novel insights and targets for the prevention or treatment of cardiovascular diseases