Insights In Cardiovascular Therapeutics 2021

Coronary heart disease remains the leading cause of death in both men and women in most industrialized countries. Yet it is largely preventable, and health care providers can acquire the skills to help their patients reduce their risks substantially. Traditional risk factors such as cigarette smoking, hypercholesterolimia, hypertension, sedentary lifestyle, obesity and glucose intolerance explain a major proportion of coronary events. Recent evidence also suggests important adjunctive roles for hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal women, and aspirin prophlaxis in individuals at high risk of a first myocardial infarction. Emerging evidence indicates an important role for diet in the prevention of heart disease. Although the importance of lifestyle and behavioral modifications may well be known among physicians and other health-care providers, the implementation of this knowledge has been limited. One reason is that the information supporting the value, feasibility and cost-effectiveness of risk-reduction strategies has not been previously synthesized and made widely available to health-care providers in office and community settings. Prevention of Myocardial Infarction fills these critical gaps by providing a state-of-the-art compendium of the scientific evidence on the efficacy of coronary disease prevention, while focusing on helping clinicians develop intervention skills to utilize available knowledge. Chapters by leading authorities in cardiovascular epidemiology, clinical cardiology, cost-effectiveness analysis, and public health translate the theory of preventive cardiology into feasible implementation. The counseling and other intervention strategies described in this textbook have documented clinical efficacy and cost-effectiveness, and they require little time to learn or implement. The book is written mainly for primary care providers, including general internists and family physicians, but will also be of interest to medical subspecialties such as cardiologists and endocrinologists, as well as medical students, dietitians, psychologists, epidemiologists, and students, practitioners, and researchers in public health.

Cells of the myeloid lineage display diverse roles and functions both in tissue homeostatic conditions and during the development of liver diseases. Hepatic myeloid cells such asKupffer cells exert immune surveillance while maintaining immune tolerance. This helps to prevent excessive immune stimulation upon encounter with gut-derived antigens from food and commensal microbes, or rapidly identifying and eliminating pathogens. Myeloid cells also exhibit a dual role by contributing to both the initiation and progression of liver diseases. During liver inflammation, myeloid cells secrete cytokines and chemokines that promote chemotaxis and tissue damage. Further down the process they can undergo reprogramming into pro-resolving, anti-inflammatory cells. In extremis, these can lead to loss of liver function and development of fibrosis and cirrhosis. Liver myeloid cells can also dictate the progress of hepatic malignancy by either promoting the infiltration and activation or suppressing the activities of effector and/or cytotoxic T cells.

This Volume of the series Cardiac and Vascular Biology offers a comprehensive and exciting, state-of-the-art work on the current options and potentials of cardiac regeneration and repair. Several techniques and approaches have been developed for heart failure repair: direct injection of cells, programming of scar tissue into functional myocardium, and tissue-engineered heart muscle support. The book introduces the rationale for these different approaches in cell-based heart regeneration and discusses the most important considerations for clinical translation. Expert authors discuss when, why, and how heart muscle can be salvaged. The book represents a valuable resource for stem cell researchers, cardiologists, bioengineers, and biomedical scientists studying cardiac function and regeneration.

Due to population aging, calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) has become the most common heart valve disease in Western countries. No therapies exist to slow this disease progression, and surgical valve replacement is the only effective treatment. Calcific Aortic Valve Disease covers the contemporary understanding of basic valve biology and the mechanisms of CAVD, provides novel insights into the genetics, proteomics, and metabolomics of CAVD, depicts new strategies in heart valve tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, and explores current treatment approaches. As we are on the verge of understanding the mechanisms of CAVD, we hope that this book will enable readers to comprehend our current knowledge and focus on the possibility of preventing disease progression in the future.