Dr Carolyn Lam:                Welcome to Circulation on the Run, your weekly podcast summary and backstage pass to the journal and it's editors. I'm Dr Carolyn Lam, associate editor from the National Heart Center and Duke National University of Singapore.                                                 Can we get better at predicting clinical benefit of PCSK9 inhibition based on the severity and extent of coronary artery disease? Well coming right up after these summaries we have an important discussion of an analysis from the FOURIER trial, so stay tuned.                                                 The first original paper this week suggests that targeting visceral adiposity may be the crucial step to limit age-related cardiac remodeling and to promote healthy cardiac aging. Co-first authors Drs Sawaki and Czibik, corresponding author Dr Derumeaux, from INSERM France, and their colleagues, hypothesize that since aging induces cardiac structural and functional changes, linked to increase deposition of extracellular matrix proteins including osteopontin, well osteopontin may play a role in myocardial aging.                                                 To test this hypothesis, they studied osteopontin-deficient mice and their wild-type litter mates at two and 14 months of age in terms of cardiac structure, function, histology and key molecular markers. They found that during aging, visceral adipose tissue represented the main source of ostepontin and altered heart structure and function via its profibrotic secretome. Furthermore, interventions targeting osteopontin, such as visceral adipose tissue removal and osteopontin deficiency, rescued the heart and induced a selective modulation of fibroblast senescence. This work uncovers ostepontin's role in the context of myocardial aging and suggests that osteopontin may be a potential new therapeutic target for a healthy cardiac aging.                                                 The next study shows that higher triglyceride rich lipoprotein cholesterol may be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and potential therapeutic target. First author Dr Vallejo-Vaz, corresponding author Dr Ray from Imperial College London, and their colleagues assess the relationship between triglyceride-rich lipoprotein cholesterol and cardiovascular risk and whether this risk was modifiable among patients receiving statins in the TNT trial. They found that higher levels of triglyceride rich lipoprotein cholesterol were associated with a significantly higher rate of cardiovascular events among coronary patients treated with statins. Statin therapy reduced triglyceride-rich lipoprotein cholesterol and to a greater extent among those treated with a higher statin dose.                                                 Based on their post hoc analysis of the TNT trial, they found that more intensive statin therapy with atorvastatin 80 milligrams, compared to atorvastatin 10 milligrams, resulted in a significantly greater cardiovascular risk reduction among patients with higher triglyceride-rich lipoprotein cholesterol. These results were consistent for higher triglycerides and directionally concordant for non-HDL cholesterol. A higher percentage reduction in triglyceride-rich lipoprotein cholesterol was associated with lower cardiovascular risk independent of LDL cholesterol reduction. Thus, these findings suggest that triglyceride-rich lipoprotein cholesterol is not only a cardiovascular risk marker, but also potentially a therapeutic target.                                                 Late gadolinium enhancement on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging represents fibrosis and is seen in 60% of adult patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. However, what about in children and adolescents with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy? First author Dr Raja from University of Copenhagen in Denmark, corresponding author Dr Ho from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and their colleagues looked at cardi