Alessandro Pingitore – författare

This book presents a detailed and updated review of the widespread changes that take place during adolescence, adopting a preventive perspective that reflects physical, social, cognitive, and emotional changes. It addresses a broad range of aspects, including: the preventive programs and their systemic effects; the role of environment in influencing the healthy behaviors of adolescents and young adults; the use of e-Health technology in health and behavioral interventions for adolescents; and the clinical and prognostic implications of primordial prevention in healthy adolescents. All of these elements are subsequently reviewed using a multidimensional approach, in order to offer extensive information on the complex changes that characterize adolescents’ physiological, psychological, and neurobiological development.

In addition, the book depicts the preventive strategies currently used in various social settings (school, family, sport club, health policies) aimed not only at reducing lifestyle risk behaviors, but also at improving resilience, happiness, social involvement, self-esteem, and sociability. This update is essential in the light of the fact that, to date, prevention has mainly been directed towards adolescents with physical or mental disorders rather than their healthy peers. As such, the book offers a valuable tool for pediatricians, child and adolescents psychiatrists, and for all professionals involved in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.

In recent years, several scientific papers have highlighted the role of the thyroid system in cardioprotection, and several clinical studies – including multicenter studies – have identified the role of thyroid hormones (TH) in the development and progression of cardiovascular disease, making an update of TH and heart relationship both necessary and timely. This second edition of Thyroid and Heart failure provides a careful and updated review of the experimental, clinical and epidemiological results in the field of TH and heart failure, with a particular focus on the translational - bench to bedside - significance of the obtained results. It discusses topics such as the molecular, structural, functional, cellular and histological cardiac changes; the reversibility of these changes with TH replacement therapy; the systemic effects – kidney, hormonal pathways systems, brain, muscle, etc – of altered TH metabolism in HF, as well as the clinical and prognostic implications. The  section devoted to the potential  therapeutic treatments has been expanded. Thanks to its translational approach to this highly complex subject, the book will be  of interest to a broad readership, including cardiologists, endocrinologists and internists. 

In the current era, evidence-based medicine and various supporting technologies dominate everyday clinical practice, according to a disease-centred, as opposed to patient-centred, approach. They have obviously improved the clinical management of diseases and it is therefore unreasonable to think of a medicine in which they are not considered fundamental. In fact, the strength of the new medicine should be to adapt scientific knowledge to a specific clinical case.

This book therefore looks at the prospect of a new ''person'' centred medicine, which stands alongside the ''disease'' and ''patient'' centred medicine, which pays special attention to the subjectivity of scientific knowledge and the relationship between doctor and patient. It is important to emphasise that this book is written by several hands, i.e. by experts from different fields, doctors, philosophers, architects, sociologists, art critics, physicists and engineers. This is with the intention of providing as broad a perspective as possible on the doctor-patient relationship.

Due to its translational and multicultural approach to the subject, the book will be of interest to a wide readership, from medical experts to students, psychologists, philosophers and institutional actors.

Both thyroid dysfunction and heart failure show a high prevalence in the adult population. Frequently, in clinical practice, a multidisciplinary approach is useful to optimize the management of patients with these conditions. Although there is no doubt regarding the close link between cardiovascular pathophysiology and thyroid homeostasis, our understanding of this association is far from being exhaustive. Thyroid hormone regulates the expression of cardiac-specific functional contractile and structural proteins and plays a pivotal role in modulating both diastolic and systolic function as well as peripheral vascular resistance. The close relationship between thyroid and heart dysfunction is strongly supported by recent evidence demonstrating that an altered thyroid profile is a negative prognostic predictor in patients with heart failure. The treatment of chronic heart failure, especially in advanced stages of the disease, continues to be an open and challenging field. The potential of novel thyroid hormone therapies that address the molecular biology of thyroid dysfunction and heart failure thus represents an attractive area of multidisciplinary scientific interest. This book is a readable, integrated, and highly up to date presentation of the clinical, pathophysiological, and basic science aspects of thyroid–heart failure interactions. It addresses a complex subject in an approach that targets a large audience of readers.