No statistically significant differences in the frequency of IL-6-174G/C gene polymorphism between chagasic patients and controls or between asymptomatic and individuals with cardiomyopathy were observed.
<b>Conclusions:</b> These results suggest that the characteristics of lactation-induced cardiac hypertrophy in wild-type mice are different from exercise-induced cardiac hypertrophy, and that the endogenous ANP/BNP-NPR1 system plays an important role in protecting the maternal heart from interleukin-6-induced inflammation and remodeling in the lactation period, a condition mimicking peripartum cardiomyopathy.
This biological framework, which is also involved in progression of cardiomyopathy in humans, is more pronounced in HIV-infected patients, in whom proinflammatory cytokines TNF-alpha, IL-1 and IL-6 are increased, resulting in an enhanced expression of cardiac iNOS, especially in patients with a low CD4 T cell count.