NPPB and cardiac hypertrophy: To further verify the effects of dietary choline in cardiac injury, we evaluated the mRNA expressions of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), β-myosin heavy chain (β-MHC) and α-myosin heavy chain (α-MHC), which were the markers for cardiac hypertrophy (Molkentin et al., 1998).