Endocrine insights into heart disease

It is increasingly recognized that apart from genetic dispositions affecting the sarcomere or myocardial ability to generate energy, cardiac abnormalities often develop on grounds of primary extracardiac dysfunction. In addition to the most common examples, such as coronary heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes, myocardial involvement is well-documented in, for instance, patients with liver, kidney, and classical endocrine diseases. A caveat is that the majority of evidence accumulated to date comes from clinical observations, hence is associational by nature. Although it stands to reason that in the mammalian organism dysfunction at one site may affect another through perturbed homeostasis, our understanding of the modes of how such extracardiac-cardiac cross-talks may occur is still in its infancy. Mechanistic data that identifies functionally relevant abnormalities in the jungle of bystanders is clearly lacking.

Identifying key nodes is important not only out of academic curiosity for increased mechanistic understanding but also for opportunities to come upon novel diagnostic and therapeutic targets. Therefore, as a first step, our aim is to facilitate the generation of novel mechanistic insight into cardiac disease, where extracardiac changes are tied to the heart’s functional integrity. To fill in this gap, the Frontiers in Endocrinology invites original contributions that help explain the development of cardiac dysfunction in any recognized extracardiac condition. A particular interest of the Journal is to identify endocrine mechanisms in cardiac conditions reflecting the increase in the prevalence of states with a major unmet medical need (natural ageing, obesity, diabetes, etc.) or identifying critical gender-dependent differences in the development of cardiac phenotype induced by the same stimuli.

To achieve these aims, we invite experimental studies addressing endocrine mechanisms that impact any form of cardiac dysfunction. The term “endocrine” is used in its widest sense, such as any circulating and humoral factors (proteins, peptides, lipids or other metabolites). The Frontiers in Endocrinology will consider original contributions where the heart is impacted by circulating factors, i.e., with a significant endocrine component to the development of cardiac disease and/or the prevention thereof. The scope of submission therefore includes, but is not limited to the following scenarios:

- Ischemic heart disease
- Cardiac pressure overload
- Endocrine inputs to atrial fibrillation
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- Obstructive sleep apnoea
- Distant organ dysfunction
- Gut microbiota
- Exercise
- Natural ageing
- Sexual dimorphism
- Classical endocrine diseases