Aging and Vascular Disease: A Multidisciplinary Overview

Vascular aging, i.e., the deterioration of the structure and function of the arteries over the life course, predicts cardiovascular events and mortality. Vascular degeneration can be recognized before becoming clinically symptomatic; therefore, its assessment allows the early identification of individuals at risk. This opens the possibility of minimizing disease progression. To review these issues, a search was completed using PubMed, MEDLINE, and Google Scholar from 2000 to date. As a network of clinicians and scientists involved in vascular medicine, we here describe the structural and functional age-dependent alterations of the arteries, the clinical tools for an early diagnosis of vascular aging, and the cellular and molecular events implicated. It emerges that more studies are necessary to identify the best strategy to quantify vascular aging, and to design proper physical activity programs, nutritional and pharmacological strategies, as well as social interventions to prevent, delay, and eventually revert the disease

Neutral-to-charged current events ratio in atmospheric neutrinos and neutrino oscillations

The atmospheric neutrinos produce isolated neutral pions ($\pi^0$-events) mainly in the neutral current interactions. We propose to study the ratios involving $\pi^0$-events and the events induced mainly by the charged currents. This minimizes uncertainties related to the original neutrino fluxes, and in certain cases, also to the cross-sections. Experimental study of these ratios will allow one to check the oscillation solution of the atmospheric neutrino problem and to identify the channel of oscillations. Illustrative analysis of existing data is presented.Comment: LaTeX, 17 pages, 1 figure. Major changes, illustrative analysis of the Super-Kamiokande results is presente

Thoracic Periaortic and Visceral Adipose Tissue and Their Cross-sectional Associations with Measures of Vascular Function

Objective: Perivascular fat may have a local adverse effect on the vasculature. We evaluated whether thoracic periaortic adipose tissue (TAT), a type of perivascular fat, and visceral adipose tissue (VAT) are associated with vascular function. Design and Methods TAT and VAT were quantified in Framingham Heart Study participants using multidetector computed tomography; vascular function was assessed using brachial artery vasodilator function, peripheral arterial tone and arterial tonometry (n= 2735, 48% women, mean age 50 years, mean BMI 27.7 kg/m2). Using multiple linear regression, we examined relations between TAT, VAT, and vascular measures while adjusting for cardiovascular risk factors. Results: Mean TAT and VAT volumes were 13.2 and 1763 cm3. TAT and VAT were associated with multiple vascular function measures after multivariable adjustment. After BMI adjustment, TAT and VAT remained negatively associated with peripheral arterial tone and inverse carotid femoral pulse wave velocity (p0.06). Conclusion: Thoracic periaortic and visceral fat are associated with microvascular function and large artery stiffness after BMI adjustment. These findings support the growing recognition of associations between ectopic fat and vascular function

Photo- and Electroproduction of Eta Mesons

Eta photo- and electroproduction off the nucleon is investigated in an effective lagrangian approach that contains Born terms and both vector meson and nucleon resonance contributions. In particular, we review and develop the formalism for coincidence experiments with polarization degrees of freedom. The different response functions appearing in single and double polarization experiments have been studied. We will present calculations for structure functions and kinematical conditions that are most sensitive to details of the lagrangian, in particular with regard to contributions of nucleon resonances beyond the dominant $S_{11}$(1535) resonance.Comment: 24 pages RevTeX/LaTeX2.09, NFSS1, 13 figures (in separate file (tar,gzip and uue)), accepted for publication in Z. Phys.