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Macrosocial Determinants of Population Health
Macrosocial Determinants of Population Health explores social factors such as culture, mass media, political systems, and migration that influence population health while systematically considering how we may best study these factors and use our knowledge from this study to guide public health interventions.Each section ends with Galea’s integrative chapters, bringing the observations and conclusions from the chapters into clear, usable focus. Macrosocial Determinants of Population Health is a work of major theoretical, empirical, and practical interest for disciplines as varied as public health, epidemiology, health promotion, sociology, and health policy. Its systematic field-building approach makes it as valuable to the public health provider as to the scholars and students studying the health of populations.
Lymphocyte Trafficking in Health and Disease
Since the discovery of chemokines and of chemokine receptors it has become evident that expression of chemokines at the site of inflammation may regulate the composition of cellular infiltrate, thereby directing the type of immune response. Recently, the molecular characterization of inherited disorders of immune system, (e.g., Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, WHIM syndrome, leukocyte adhesion deficiency), which are characterized by cytoskeleton/adhesion defects or by altered response of chemokine receptors has contributed to clarifying the key players of immune response in normal physiology and in disease. This book, which deals with the description of the role of chemokines in immune response and underlines potential targets of therapeutical intervention, offers a series of contributions of the most challenging aspects of lymphocyte migration in homeostasis and in disease.
Lipids in Health and Disease
Lipids are functionally versatile molecules. They have evolved from relatively simple hydrocarbons that serve as depot storages of metabolites and barriers to the permeation of solutes into complex compounds that perform a variety of signalling functions in higher organisms. This volume is devoted to the polar lipids and their constituents. We have omitted the neutral lipids like fats and oils because their function is generally to act as deposits of metabolizable substrates. The sterols are also outside the scope of the present volume and the reader is referred to volume 28 of this series which is the subject of cholesterol. The polar lipids are comprised of fatty acids attached to either glycerol or sphingosine. The fatty acids themselves constitute an important reservoir of substrates for conversion into families of signalling and modulating molecules including the eicosanoids amongst which are the prostaglandins, thromboxanes and leucotrienes. The way fatty acid metabolism is regulated in the liver and how fatty acids are desaturated are subjects considered in the first part of this volume. This section also deals with the modulation of protein function and inflammation by unsaturated fatty acids and their derivatives. New insights into the role of fatty acid synthesis and eicosenoid function in tumour progression and metastasis are presented.
Cell Stress Proteins
This comprehensive volume, written by experts in the field, provides a current understanding of the molecular properties of the heat shock proteins and their roles in health and disease. Cell Stress Proteins includes advances in several aspects of stress protein research, with chapters ranging from basic studies of the role of heat shock proteins in protein folding to reviews examining the breakdown of stress protein regulation during disease. It also provides analysis of the biochemical and molecular properties of heat shock proteins which can be utilized in evaluating their role in human physiology and pathology. Cell Stress Proteins is an ideal book for researchers, clinicians, physicians, and graduate students in the fields of biochemistry, cell biology, microbiology, immunology, and genetics.
Carbohydrate-based therapeutics
Explores new frontiers in carbohydrate-based therapeutic applications, utilizing a unique approach by providing a detailed background of diseases coupled with subsequent carbohydrate-based therapies. The link between chemistry and design of novel carbohydrate-based medicines is highlighted and a broad overview of all the potential applications of carbohydrates is given. Emphasis is laid on concepts used for carbohydrate drug design, structure– activity relationship, and impact on health and diseases. The text also discusses newer topics like nanoparticles, material science, and tissue generation.
Breathing, feeding, and neuroprotection
New findings in brain research are being revealed on an almost daily basis, and the focus of this book is the fields of breathing, neuroprotection, and higher brain functions. An unresolved issue within respiration research and hence a topic of much interest is Where and how respiratory rhythm is generated in the brainstem, detailed analysis of which is presented herein. Chapters on neuroprotection examine the functional significance of the blood – brain barrier as an interface of blood and the central nervous system; other chapters look at health and disease in relation to the hypothalamic and limbic systems. In addition to animal experiments, research on the human brain is included, with a focus on the recently developed EEG/dipole tracing method. This book will be an invaluable reference for researchers in neuroscience and related fields.
Application of muscle/nerve stimulation in health and disease
The first evidence that electrical changes can cause muscles to contract was p- vided by Galvani (1791). Thus, elect- cal activity graduated from a simple mechanism that is used to elicit muscle c- traction, to a system that could induce permanent changes in muscles and modify most of its characteristic properties.
Antioxidants effects in health : The bright and the dark side ; 1st ed.
Examines the role that antioxidants play in a variety of health and disease situations. The book discusses antioxidants’ historical evolution, their oxidative stress, and contains a detailed approach of 1) endogenous antioxidants, including endogenous sources, mechanisms of action, beneficial and detrimental effects on health, in vitro evidence, animal studies and clinical studies; 2) synthetic antioxidants, including sources, chemistry, bioavailability, legal status, mechanisms of action, beneficial and detrimental effects on health, in vitro evidence, animal studies and clinical studies; and 3) natural antioxidants, including sources, chemistry, bioavailability, mechanisms of action, possible prooxidant activity; beneficial and detrimental effects on health, in vitro evidence, animal studies and clinical studies. Throughout the boo, the relationship of antioxidants with different beneficial and detrimental effects are examined, and the current controversies and future perspectives are addressed and explored. Antioxidants Effects in Health: The Bright and the Dark Side evaluates the current scientific evidence on antioxidant topics, focusing on endogenous antioxidants, naturally occurring antioxidants and synthetic antioxidants. It will be a helpful resource for pharmaceutical scientists, health professionals, those studying natural chemistry, phytochemistry, pharmacognosy, natural product synthesis, and experts in formulation of herbal and natural pharmaceuticals.
Adipose Tissue and Adipokines in Health and Disease
The aim of Adipose Tissue and Adipokines in Health and Disease is to provide comprehensive information regarding adipose tissue, its physiological functions and its role in disease. This volume contains a collection of information spanning the entire range of adipose tissue studies, from basic anatomical and physiological research to epidemiology and clinical aspects, in one place. This book is indispensable for basic researchers and clinicians interested in the fields of obesity, metabolic diseases, inflammation and immunity, and specialists in each of the pathologies associated with obesity.
Biomarkers in periodontal health and disease : Rationale, benefits, and Future directions
This book examines all aspects of the progress being made towards the development of highly specific and sensitive biomarkers that will overcome the shortcomings of clinical assessments in periodontics. Readers will find the book to be an ideal summary of the state of the art in the field as biomarkers emerge that promise to facilitate periodontal diagnostics and permit timely, personally tailored interventions.
BioMEMS and biomedical nanotechnology ; Vol. III : Therapeutic Micro/Nanotechnology
The human body is composed of structures organized in a hierarchical fashion: from biomolecules assembled into polymers, to multimeric assemblies such as cellular or-ganelles, to individual cells, to tissues, to organ systems working together in health and disease- each dominated by a characteristic length scale. Decades of science and engineer-ing are now converging to provide tools that enable the orderly manipulation of biological systems at previously inaccessible, though critically important, length scales (<100 mi-crons). Thus, the approaches described in this volume provide a snapshot of how micro-and nanotechnologies can enable the investigation, prevention, and treatment of human disease.The volume is divided into three parts. The first part, Cell-based therapeutics; cov- ers the merger of cells with micro- and anosystems for applications in regenerative medicine spanning the development of novel nanobiomaterials.
