GDF11 and cardiac hypertrophy: Nevertheless, interest persists from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the potential effects of GDF11 in age-related organ dysfunction (Loffredo et al, 2013; Katsimpardi et al, 2014; Sinha et al, 2014), and several studies support the notion that exogenous GDF11 may regulate cardiac hypertrophy and skeletal muscle repair in older animals (Loffredo et al, 2013; Sinha et al, 2014; Du et al, 2017).