Endocrinology of the Vasculature

Book excerpt: Key workers in vascular medicine and biology apply state-of-the-art techniques in cell and molecular biology to study the endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cells. The distinguished scientists and clinicians open a new area of endocrinology, which sees the vasculature and kidney as endocrine organs and sheds new light on the hormonal regulation of the cardiovascular system. They also add significantly to our current understanding of the autocrine, paracrine, and endocrine regulation of vascular function in health and in those vascular disease states that accompany diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, and hypertension. Endocrinology of the Vasculature is the first book to comprehensively and systematically explore the vasculature as an endocrine organ.