Inflammation, Life Style, and Chronic Disease ─ The Silent Link

Oxidative stress and inflammation are among the most important factors of disease. Chronic infections, obesity, alcohol and tobacco usage, radiation, environmental pollutants, and high-calorie diets have been recognized as major risk factors for a variety of chronic diseases from cancer to metabolic diseases. All these risk factors are linked to chronic diseases through inflammation. While short-term, acute inflammation generated by the immune system serves a therapeutic role, chronic low-level inflammation that may persist "silently" for decades is responsible for chronic diseases.
Inflammation, Lifestyle, and Chronic Diseases: The Silent Link describes the role of dysregulated inflammation in persistent and recurring diseases. It investigates links to lifestyle and presents research on how the suppression of proinflammatory pathways may provide opportunities for both prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. The book covers neurodegenerative diseases, pulmonary diseases, asthma, rheumatic and arthritic diseases, skin disease, heart disease, chronic wounds, infectious disease, neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression, gastrointestinal diseases, insulin resistance, and cancer, many of which are also diseases of old age.

For each chronic disease, contributors review the clinical and scientific literature and examine current and potential therapies, including conventional pharmacotherapies as well as natural products. Noting that the long-term use of steroids and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can cause adverse side effects, many of the chapters address the role of dietary agents such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, pulses, nuts, and spices as ideal anti-inflammatory agents that can be consumed regularly. The book also suggests directions for further research. Clinical and science researchers, students, and health professionals interested in the link between inflammation, lifestyle, and chronic diseases will find this an informative resource.

Dr. Bharat Bhushan Aggarwal is the Ransom Home, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Cancer Research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Division of Cancer Medicine’s Department of Experimental Therapeutics, and chief of the Cytokine Research Laboratory, in Houston, Texas. He earned a PhD in biochemistry at the University of California in Berkeley, then underwent postdoctoral training at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. He worked for ten years at Genentech, Inc., where he isolated and determined the structure of TNF-a and TNF-ß, before returning to a university-based academic position.
Dr. Sunil Krishnan is director of Gastrointestinal Translational Research and associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. He received his MD degree at the Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, and then completed an internal medicine residency at Penn State Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pennsylvania, and a radiation oncology residency at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota, before joining the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Dr. Sushovan Guha is the site director of the Gastroenterology Fellowship Program and assistant professor of gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He earned his MD degree from Jawaharlal Institute of Post-Graduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Pondicherry, India, and graduated with an MA/MPhil in microbiology and immunology from Columbia University, New York. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. Dr. Guha then joined the prestigious Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) Fellowship in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, where he also received his PhD from the Molecular Biology Institute (MBI) under the astute tutelage of Professor Enrique Rozengurt.

Roles of Innate Immunity and Inflammation in the Aging Brain; Eitan Okun, XinZhi Chen, Milan Basta, and Mark P. Mattson

Immune Modulation of Inflammation in Neurodegenerative Diseases: Alzheimer’s Disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis; Michelle Mahanian, Milan Fiala, Mathew T. Mizwicki, and Antonio La Cava

Environment and the Role of Inflammation in Chronic Pulmonary Diseases: The Silent Mediator; Hongwei Yao and Irfan Rahman

Role of Inflammation and Lifestyle in Chronic Asthma; Eugene W. X. Ho, Khai Pang Leong, Chang Cheng, and W. S. Fred Wong

Inflammation in Rheumatic and Arthritic Diseases: Role of Dietary Phytochemicals; Ali Mobasheri, Constance Aldinger, and Mehdi Shakibaei

The Role of Inflammation in Skin Disease: Inflammation, Lifestyle, and Chronic Diseases—The Silent Link; Ricardo L. Berrios, Jigar R. Patel, and Jack L. Arbiser

Inflammation and Heart Diseases; Naveed A. Adoni, Ghassan H. Abusaid, and Ken Fujise

Wound Inflammation: From Initiation to Resolution; Sashwati Roy, Amitava Das, Kasturi Ganesh, and Chandan K. Sen

Role of Inflammation in Infectious Disease; Ian A. Clark and Lisa M. Alleva

Implications of Inflammation for Neuropsychiatric Disease: Contributions and Consequences; Thaddeus W. W. Pace, Charles L. Raison, and Andrew H. Miller

Role of Inflammation in Gastrointestinal Diseases; Sarah Kraus, Victoria Lisiansky, Jeffrey Zweig, Elena Kapilevich, and Nadir Arber

Pathogenesis of Insulin Resistance, the Metabolic Syndrome, and Inflammation: An Issue of Modern Lifestyle; Paresh Dandona, Husam Ghanim, Ajay Chaudhuri, Sandeep Dhindsa, and Antoine Makdissi

Role of Inflammation in Cancer Development; Muthu K. Shanmugam, Vinay Tergaonkar, and Gautam Sethi

Chronic Diseases Caused by Chronic Inflammation Require Chronic Treatment: The Anti-Inflammatory Lifestyle; Bharat B. Aggarwal, Chitra Sundaram, Sahdeo Prasad, Simone Reuter, Ramaswamy Kannappan, Vivek R. Yadav, Byoungduck Park, Ji Hye Kim, Subash C. Gupta, Kanokkarn Phromnoi, and Bokyung Sung

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