Furthermore, accumulating evidence suggests that circulating GDF-15 concentrations are elevated and serve as independent prognostic biomarker in a wide spectrum of cardiovascular diseases, including ischemic heart disease, heart failure, atherosclerosis, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and as a predictor of first-ever stroke in hypertensive patients [52,53,54,55]. The gene discussed is GDF15; the disease is heart failure.