Metabolic Risk for Cardiovascular Disease

The relationship of metabolic diseases to cardiovascular disease (CVD) is reaching epidemic proportions. This relates mostly to the increasing prevalence of obesity, the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

This book outlines and addresses the metabolic factors and related diseases that contribute to CVD, including brief introductions to metabolic pathways including lipid and lipoprotein metabolism, macronutrient fuel partitioning, insulin action and body weight regulation. Mechanisms that relate to becoming obese, maintenance of the obese state, the dyslipidemias, and glucose intolerance/diabetes are also addressed, and the importance of interventions that reduce metabolic risk factors and CVD are covered.

Robert H. Eckel, M.D. received both his Bachelor of Sciences in Bacteriology and Medical Doctorate from the University of Cincinnati. He did his Housestaff training in Internal Medicine at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and from there traveled to Seattle for a senior fellowship in Endocrinology and Metabolism. Dr. Eckel was then appointed as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine where he is now Professor of Medicine and holds the Charles A. Boettcher Endowed Chair in Atherosclerosis. In addition, Dr. Eckel holds a joint appointment in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics and adjunct appointments in the School of Pharmacy, the Department of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Colorado State University. Dr. Eckel currently directs the campus wide Program in Preventive Cardiology at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center.
Shortly after his arrival in Denver, Dr. Eckel was appointed Associate Program Director of the Adult General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (UCHSC). In 1993 he assumed the role of Program Director, a position he continues to hold. Dr. Eckel’s translational research in lipid and lipoprotein metabolism, insulin action, energy balance and body weight regulation has led to a number of awards, and his presidency of the Western Society for Clinical Investigation, the North American Association for the Study of Obesity, the Association for Patient Oriented Research, and the American Heart Association.