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.

Zusammenfassung
The editor, James R. Sowers, is to be congratulated on collecting so many qualified contributions into one volume. Reviews on each of the fields covered in this book can be found in different journals, but this book provides a source of excellent summaries of this hitherto fairly neglected field.-Diabetologia

Inhalt
I. The Endothelium.- 1 Endothelium-Derived Relaxing Factor:An Overview.- 2 Ionic Mechanisms of Peptide-Induced Responses in Vascular Endothelial Cells.- 3 Non-cGMP, Paracrine Effects of Nitric Oxide in the Vasculature.- 4 The Endothelin Peptides:Roles in Physiology and Pathophysiology.- 5 Estrogen and Vascular Reactivity.- 6 C-Type Natriuretic Peptide:The Vascular Component of the Natriuretic Peptide System.- 7 Vascular Actions of Insulin in Health and Disease:Role of the Endothelium.- 8 AngiotensinNitric Oxide:Interaction and the Regulation of Renal Vascular Tone.- 9 Altered Endothelial Function in Diabetes Mellitus:An Overview.- 10 Vascular Abnormalities in Diabetes Mellitus.- 11 Effects of Hyperglycemia on Vascular Endothelium Nitric Oxide Metabolism.- 12 Evidence Linking Fatty Acids, the Risk Factor Cluster, and Vascular Pathophysiology:Implications for the Diabetic Hypertensive Patient.- 13 Effects of Low Density Lipoproteins on Endothelial Cell Signaling and Adhesion Molecule Expression.- II. Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells.- 14 Angiotensin II Signal Transduction in Vascular Smooth Muscle.- 15 The Vascular Renin System.- 16 Effects of Insulin on Vascular Smooth Muscle Contraction.- 17 Sex Hormones and the Vasculature.- 18 Vitamin D and the Vessel Wall.- 19 Vascular Action Natriuretic Peptide Receptors.- 20 A Novel Vascular Hormone:Adrenomedullin.- 21 Calcium and Magnesium in the Regulation of Smooth Muscle Function and Blood Pressure:The Ionic Hypothesis of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases and Vascular Aging.- 22 Regulation of Intracellular pH and the Na+/H+Antiporter in Vascular Smooth Muscle.- 23 Endocrine Regulation of Vascular Smooth Muscle Intermediary Metabolism.- 24 Analogy Between Endothelial/Mesangial Cell and Endothelial/Vascular Smooth Muscle CellInteractions:Role of Growth Factors and Mechanotransduction.- 25 Arachidonic Acid Metabolites in the Vasculature.- 26 Arachidonic Acid Metabolites on Renin and Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Growth.