1. From the Departments of Cardiology (S.B., V.R., M.R., W.D.I., T.K.R., K. Sydow, D.L., K. Szöcs, A.K., T.R., H.K., T.M., T.H.) and Cardiovascular Surgery (S.S., T.D., H.C.R.), Heart Center, and the Department of Clinical Chemistry (M.H.), University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany; and the Departments of Internal Medicine and Human Physiology (J.P.E., L.K., L.B.), University of California, Davis.