Vascular Remodeling in Health and Disease

The term vascular remodeling is commonly used to define the structural changes in blood vessel geometry that occur in response to long-term physiologic alterations in blood flow or in response to vessel wall injury brought about by trauma or underlying cardiovascular diseases.1, 2, 3, 4 The process of remodeling, which begins as an adaptive response to long-term hemodynamic alterations such as elevated shear stress or increased intravascular pressure, may eventually become maladaptive, leading to impaired vascular function. The vascular endothelium, owing to its location lining the lumen of blood vessels, plays a pivotal role in regulation of all aspects of vascular function and homeostasis.5 Thus, not surprisingly, endothelial dysfunction has been recognized as the harbinger of all major cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, atherosclerosis, and diabetes.6, 7, 8 The endothelium elaborates a variety of substances that influence vascular tone and protect the vessel wall against inflammatory cell adhesion, thrombus formation, and vascular cell proliferation.8, 9, 10 Among the primary biologic mediators emanating from the endothelium is nitric oxide (NO) and the arachidonic acid metabolite prostacyclin [prostaglandin I2 (PGI2)], which exert powerful vasodilatory, antiadhesive, and antiproliferative effects in the vessel wall

How good are clinical severity and outcome measures for psoriasis: Quantitative evaluation in a systematic review

A large number of clinical measures of psoriasis are used in clinical trials and daily practice. These measures lack uniformity and validation. However, valid outcome and severity measures for psoriasis are a prerequisite for fully informative clinical research and evidence-based medicine. The purpose of this study was to identify all clinical measures of psoriasis severity and outcome in use and to evaluate the quality of these measures using clinimetric criteria; we identified 53 separate clinical measures, which were regrouped into 11 measures for quality analysis. No measure could be scored on all items used in the clinimetric analysis. The Lattice System Physician's Global Assessment and Physician's Global Assessment were most highly noted. We conclude that none of the psoriasis measures is adequately validated. The Psoriasis Area and Severity Index is the most commonly used clinical measure in research, but it has substantial limitations such as low response distribution, no consensus on interpretability, and low responsiveness in mild disease. Nevertheless, because of its widespread use the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index permits some degree of comparison of results among clinical trials. Overall, no best instrument was identified, and different situations may call for different measures

Know Thyself and Become What You Are: A Eudaimonic Approach to Psychological Well-Being

autonomy, environmental mastery, eudaimonia, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, self-acceptance,