GHRL and heart failure: In rat models of chronic renal failure, cancer cachexia and heart failure, subcutaneous daily injection of ghrelin over 5–28 day periods improved food intake, and total and lean body mass, usually without affecting fat mass [22,23,27–29] In their heart failure model, Akashi et al [22] found a continuous subcutaneous ghrelin infusion of 50 nmol/kg/day did not increase total body mass nor lean mass, but did increase fat mass, whereas 50 nmol/kg/day s.c. given three times daily increased body, lean and fat mass.