NPPB and cardiac hypertrophy: Cardiac hypertrophy is an independent risk factor for the progressive development of heart failure, which is characterized by increased protein synthesis and cardiomyocyte cell surface, and re-expression of fetal genes, such as atrial natriuretic peptide (ANF), brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), and β-myosin heavy chain (β-MHC) (Nakagawa, Nishikimi, and Kuwahara, 2019).