In recent years, it has become apparent that low-grade vascular inflammation plays a key role in all stages of the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Weight loss has been shown to improve blood inflammatory markers; however, it is unknown if weight-loss diets varying in macronutrient composition differentially affect inflammatory responses. The primary purpose of the present study was to compare ...

BACKGROUND Mechanisms involving oxidative stress and inflammation have been proposed to explain associations of ambient air pollution with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Experimental evidence suggests that organic components and ultrafine particles (UFP) are important. METHODS We conducted a panel study of 60 elderly subjects with coronary artery disease living in retirement communit...

PURPOSE Smoking is a significant risk factor of cardiac ischaemia. Changes in platelet count, morphology and platelet activation enhance the risk. MATERIAL AND METHODS The objective of the study was to assess platelet parameters in smoking healthy subjects with reference to sex. In the group of women, 27% were smokers, in the group of men--49%. All the subjects were tested for platelet count ...

allergic airway inflammation is characterized by elaboration of cytokines and chemokines leading to recruitment of inflammatory leukocytes, predominantly eosinophils, to the airways. granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor (gm-csf) is generated in the lungs of human subjects with asthma in response to allergen challenge and is necessary for the development of allergen-induced bronchial...

INTRODUCTION The stimulatory effects of CRP (C-reactive protein) on endothelial cells are mainly mediated via FcγRIIa. This receptor exists in two different allotypes bearing either arginine (R131) or histidine (H131) at the extracellular amino acid position 131 of the mature protein, but only FcγRIIa-R131 displays high avidity for CRP. This study investigated the role of the FcγRIIa genotype i...

BACKGROUND Platelets from untreated periodontitis patients are hyper-reactive and form more platelet-leukocyte complexes compared to cells from individuals without periodontitis. It is not known whether the improvement of the periodontal condition achievable by therapy has beneficial effects on the platelet function. We aimed to assess the effects of periodontal therapy on platelet reactivity. ...