Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality in men and women. Unfortunately, women have traditionally been excluded from clinical trials, and female animals have been used less or sex was not reported in basic research studies. Until recently, consideration of both sexes was not required in clinical and preclinical studies focusing on cardiovascular diseases. However, the number of clinical and experimental papers dealing with sex differences and heart disease significantly increases during the last years. This trend is obviously the result of at least two facts: the number of examples of different behavior of the male and female heart under physiological and pathological conditions is steadily increasing and there were controversial reports on the beneficial and adverse effect of hormonal replacement therapy. Detailed molecular and cellular mechanisms of these differences are still unknown but one is clear already today: sex differences are so important that they should be considered by the selection of optimum diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in clinical practice.
The book presents 16 manuscripts on sex differences of heart disease, as developed by several investigators; the volume is organized in four parts. Part I, dealing with sex differences in cardiac ischemic injury, includes 5 chapters on experimental aspects of cardiac ischemia/reperfusion injury, the role of testosterone, and clinical aspects of ischemic heart disease. Part II is devoted to sex differences in heart failure and includes four chapters. Discussion in this part of the book is centered around the sex differences in heart failure due to volume overload. Part III of this volume includes four papers on risk factors of cardiovascular diseases, namely hypertension and obesity, and, finally, three chapters in part IV deal with sex differences of cardiac mitochondria under different pathological conditions. We believe this book will be very useful forcardiovascular scientists, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and other health professionals.

The role of sex in cardiac function and disease

Sex based differences in cardiac ischemic injury and reperfusion
Sex differences in myocardial infarct size
Sex differences in the susceptibility to ischemic injury - the role of calcium loading and adrenergic stimulation
Sex and obesity and myocardial tolerance to ischemia
Effect of female sex on rat ventricular myocytes exposed to stimulated ischemia
Cardioprotection in females
Sex differences in Cardioprotection ischemia reperfusion injury
Sex and ischemic preconditioning
Postconditioning and female heart
Prenatal hypoxia and sex-dependent increase in heart susceptibility in adults
Sex and cardiovascular system
Sex differences in coronary heart disease
Sex differences in the management of non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome
Sex specific aspects of coronary heart disease risk factors
Sex differences in patients with ischemic heart failure undergoing surgical treatment
Woman and the management of acute coronary syndrome
Sex differences and heart hypertrophy and failure
Sex differences among patients with acute coronary syndrome undergoing PTCA
Sex differences and atherosclerosis
Estrogen and cardiovascular system
Estrogen signaling and cardiovascular disease
A novel estrogen receptor GPER and its role in the protection against ischemia/reperfusion injury
Sexual hormones: effects on mitochondrial activity after ischemia/reperfusion injury
Progesterone and ischemia/reperfusion injury
Testosteron and myocardial infarction
Postmenopausal hormone therapy: risks and benefits
Molecular and cellular basis of cardiovascular sex differences
Mitochondria - a target for sex differences in cardiac pathology
Sex differences in the sensitivity of cardiac mitochondrial permeability transition pore to calcium load
Sex differences in mitochondrial biogenesis
Sexual dimorphism in the expression of mitochondria-related genes in rat heart
Sex differences in mitochondrialantioxidant gene expression
Sex differences in the regulation of mitochondrial subpopulations
Sex specificities in Ca handling in cardiac mitochondria
The influence of exercise and sex on mitochondrial metabolism and ultrastructure
Sex differences in the phosphorylation of mitochondrial proteins - effect on cardioprotection
Sex - specific proteomic alterations in mitochondrial pathways.