Syllabus
Disorders of acid-base balance.
Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species in the body, the antioxidant defence.
Ageing.
Non-enzymatic glycations, insulinoresistance, metabolic syndrome.
Inflammation.
Disorders of protein folding and their clinical consequences. Prions.
Death of heart and neuronal cell: ischemia/reperfusion, excitotoxicity and neurodegeneration.
Annotation
In order to maintain health and physiological function, any living organism is forced to regulate many parameters of its internal environment, such as pH of body fluids, delivery of oxygen to tissues, and redox potential (production of reactive oxygen species). Unwanted spontaneous oxidations and glycations, which can damage biomolecules, must be controlled.
The biomolecules are constantly subject of repair or replacement processes. This maintenance of body structural and chemical integrity is costly and has its limits, whose exceeding leads to development of many significant human diseases and pathological states, and also to physiological ageing.