LEP and myocardial infarction: Alternatively, preclinical studies using leptin-deficient animals (ob/ob mice) demonstrated that restoring plasma leptin concentration to normal improved heart function after MI, and that these beneficial effects were associated with reductions in cardiac inflammation and apoptosis [13, 14] and activation of anti-hypertrophic pathways in obese animals with left ventricle (LV) hypertrophy [8].