Cardiac atrial natriuretic peptide concentrations in experimental obese mice

Obesity is usually associated with expansion of blood volume. Therefore, we studied whether obesity affects cardiac and plasma atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) levels in experimental animal model. Mice made obese with gold thioglucose developed cardiac hypertrophy associated with increases in ANP in atrial tissue and plasma. There were significant (p less than 0.01) correlations between the cardiac ANP concentration and body weight or cardiac weight. These data suggest that enhanced synthesis of atrial ANP in obese mice can be mainly ascribed to increased blood volume associated with cardiac hypertrophy.