Mechanisms and management of metabolic cardiovascular disease

Metabolic cardiovascular disease, referring to cardiovascular disease (CVD) caused by the accumulation of metabolic risk factors, is rapidly increasing and shows a younger trend globally. Risk factors have become increasingly diverse, and are no longer limited to common metabolic abnormalities such as obesity, abnormal blood pressure, glucose and lipid metabolism. In recent years, the impact of other metabolic factors such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, abnormal amino acid metabolism, thyroid dysfunction, gut microbiota metabolites, immune activation and systemic inflammation has received increasing attention.

Metabolic cardiovascular disease involves multiple fields, and it is necessary to strengthen the joint management of both cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Since co-presence of multiple metabolic risk factors is often seen in a person, the interaction of these risk factors will further increase the risk of CVD. Thus, patients with metabolic CVD should be individualized comprehensive management in clinical practice. Accordingly, drug development has constantly been updated, providing new tools and ideas for effectively controlling metabolic risk factors and cardiovascular complications. For example, new hypoglycemic drugs such as GLP-1 receptor agonists and SGLT-2 inhibitors have shown significant cardiovascular benefits in addition to their therapeutic effects on glucose metabolism.

However, the clinical management of metabolic CVD is still unsatisfactory, mainly due to the complexity of the pathogenesis, and more systematic exploration is needed to target residual risks. Developing biomarkers with state-of-the-art methods such as multi-omics analysis can empower individualized intervention through predicting future risk to tailor primary prevention better, as well as identifying disease in the earliest stage.

Therefore, this research collection aims to call for papers on the frontier of research, focusing on pathogenesis and etiology, residue risk factor exploration, risk stratification, prevention and treatment of metabolic CVD.

We welcome both clinical and basic original articles, meta-analysis and reviews, covering, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Description of metabolic disorder profiles of metabolic CVD progress including target organ damages and diseases, especially among different subgroups such as region, age, sex, and status of co-morbidities.
• Basic research exploring the mechanisms contributing to the pathogenesis and etiology as well as treatments of CVD.
• Identifying novel risk factors associated with metabolic CVD as well as target organ damage, especially by using multi-omics strategy and exploring the interactions of genetic and environmental factors.
• Building and improving the risk prediction models in both primary and secondary prevention by adding new biomarkers or adopting artificial intelligence (AI) methods.
• Evaluation of strategy for risk factor control and metabolic CVD prevention, such as lifestyle changes, new medications and interventions. Methods including use of digital therapeutics and wearable devices are also welcome.