613 research outputs found

    The relationship between air pollution and diabetes: a study on the Municipalities of the Metropolitan City of Milan

    No full text
    AIMS: Urbanisation has been linked with an increased risk of developing diabetes mellitus, dramatically worsening the healthcare system's financial burden. Environmental influences are emerging among the causing factors of the urban diabetes epidemic. We evaluated the relationship between air pollution and the prevalence of diabetes in the Municipalities of the Metropolitan City of Milan, comprising more than 3,4 million citizens.METHODS: The prevalence of diabetes in the resident population and the mean annual air concentrations of PM10 and NO2 were retrieved from the municipal Agency for Health Protection and the regional Agency for Ambient Protection datasets. Two linear regression models were estimated to inspect the relationships between the (logit-based transformed) diabetes prevalence and air pollution concentrations, namely: (i) PM10, and (ii) NO2. Both models were adjusted for five control variables, including the qualitative variable year (2011-2018).RESULTS: Both models highlight a statistically significant positive relationship between air pollutants and diabetes prevalence. An increase of one PM10 or NO2 concentrations' unit translates into a rise of 0.81% or 0.41% in diabetes prevalence, respectively.CONCLUSION: Our results contribute to the ongoing research regarding health outcomes of urbanisation dynamics and should be considered in city planning policies

    Hermann Kant. Ein bio- bibliografisches Profil

    No full text
    The proximity to the power apparatus has cast dark shadows on the literary work of Hermann Kant, who is regarded as one of the most read authors of the GDR. Valerio Furneri embeds Kant's life and work in the all-German context of the 20th century and reinterprets his classics such as Die Aula or Der Aufenthalt. The author does not pursue the claim to rehabilitate the GDR, nor to trivialise Kant's role in it. Instead, the attempt is made to look at Kant's entire work from a temporal distance and to re-evaluate it. Through his works, Kant was able to accompany and depict not only the German-German history, but also European history.Die Nähe zum Machtapparat hat dunkle Schatten auf das literarische Werk von Hermann Kant, der als meistgelesener Schriftsteller der DDR gilt, geworfen. Valerio Furneri bettet Kants Leben und Werk in den gesamtdeutschen Kontext des 20. Jahrhunderts ein und interpretiert vor diesem Hintergrund Klassiker wie Die Aula oder Der Aufenthalt neu. Der Autor verfolgt dabei weder den Anspruch, die DDR zu rehabilitieren, noch Kants Rolle darin kleinzureden. Stattdessen wird der Versuch unternommen, Kants Gesamtwerk aus zeitlicher Distanz zu betrachten und neu zu bewerten. Durch seine Werke gelang es Kant nämlich nicht nur die deutsch-deutsche, sondern auch die europäische Geschichte zu begleiten und abzubilden

    Hermann Kant. Ein bio- bibliografisches Profil

    No full text
    The proximity to the power apparatus has cast dark shadows on the literary work of Hermann Kant, who is regarded as one of the most read authors of the GDR. Valerio Furneri embeds Kant's life and work in the all-German context of the 20th century and reinterprets his classics such as Die Aula or Der Aufenthalt. The author does not pursue the claim to rehabilitate the GDR, nor to trivialise Kant's role in it. Instead, the attempt is made to look at Kant's entire work from a temporal distance and to re-evaluate it. Through his works, Kant was able to accompany and depict not only the German-German history, but also European history.Die Nähe zum Machtapparat hat dunkle Schatten auf das literarische Werk von Hermann Kant, der als meistgelesener Schriftsteller der DDR gilt, geworfen. Valerio Furneri bettet Kants Leben und Werk in den gesamtdeutschen Kontext des 20. Jahrhunderts ein und interpretiert vor diesem Hintergrund Klassiker wie Die Aula oder Der Aufenthalt neu. Der Autor verfolgt dabei weder den Anspruch, die DDR zu rehabilitieren, noch Kants Rolle darin kleinzureden. Stattdessen wird der Versuch unternommen, Kants Gesamtwerk aus zeitlicher Distanz zu betrachten und neu zu bewerten. Durch seine Werke gelang es Kant nämlich nicht nur die deutsch-deutsche, sondern auch die europäische Geschichte zu begleiten und abzubilden

    An amino acid-defined diet impairs tumour growth in mice by promoting endoplasmic reticulum stress and mTOR inhibition

    No full text
    Objective: Profound metabolic alterations characterize cancer development and, beyond glucose addiction, amino acid (AA) dependency is now recognized as a hallmark of tumour growth. Therefore, targeting the metabolic addiction of tumours by reprogramming their substrate utilization is an attractive therapeutic strategy. We hypothesized that a dietary approach targeted to stimulate oxidative metabolism could reverse the metabolic inflexibility of tumours and represent a proper adjuvant therapy. Methods: We measured tumour development in xenografted mice fed with a designer, casein-deprived diet enriched in free essential amino acids (EAAs; SFA-EAA diet), or two control isocaloric, isolipidic, and isonitrogenous diets, identical to the SFA-EAA diet except for casein presence (SFA diet), or casein replacement by the free AA mixture designed on the AA profile of casein (SFA-CAA diet). Moreover, we investigated the metabolic, biochemical, and molecular effects of two mixtures that reproduce the AA composition of the SFA-EAA diet (i.e., EAAm) and SFA-CAA diet (i.e., CAAm) in diverse cancer and non-cancer cells. Results: The SFA-EAA diet reduced tumour growth in vivo, promoted endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, and inhibited mechanistic/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) activity in the tumours. Accordingly, in culture, the EAAm, but not the CAAm, activated apoptotic cell death in cancer cells without affecting the survival and proliferation of non-cancer cells. The EAAm increased branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) oxidation and decreased glycolysis, ATP levels, redox potential, and intracellular content of selective non-essential amino acids (NEAA) in cancer cells. The EAAm-induced NEAA starvation activated the GCN2-ATF4 stress pathway, leading to ER stress, mTOR inactivation, and apoptosis in cancer cells, unlike non-cancer cells. Conclusion: Together, these results confirm the efficacy of specific EAA mixtures in promoting cancer cells’ death and suggest that manipulation of dietary EAA content and profile could be a valuable support to the standard chemotherapy for specific cancers

    Special issue: Process safety in times of a pandemic

    No full text
    Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Safety and Security Scienc
    corecore