REN and familial dilated cardiomyopathy: Although most of the experimental evidence linking abnormal RAS activation with DCM has been obtained in rodent models of diabetes, the significant improvement of left ventricle hypertrophy and systolic function in diabetic patients treated with the RAS antagonist aliskiren, a renin inhibitor, clearly supports the notion that RAS activation is a major contributor to the pathogenesis of DCM [49,50].