APOE and atherosclerosis: The evaluation of cardiac function in 26-week-old and 52-week-old Apoe-/- mice fed a normal chow diet compared with C57BL/6J wild-type control mice of the same age, gender, and diet was performed in order to address the issue of whether and to what extent the histopathological changes that occur concurrently with the progression of atherosclerosis can affect cardiac function.