Publications by authors named "D Pisanelli"
Given the long-standing debate about the nature of the concept of disease, the objective of this study was to understand how doctors categorize a condition as a disease or not, and what the kind of information they use is. A survey with a set of eighteen clinical vignettes was designed, and nineteen physicians and senior students purposefully selected were asked to interpret those situations as diseases or not and to produce an anonymous short written piece of text providing the motivation of their choice. Realist thematic analysis was used to analyse the answers, and four themes emerged: the temporal dimension of a disease, reification of disease, disease as an existential condition, and disease as a motivation to action.
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- A study conducted in Southern Italy from February 2022 to June 2023 examined the prevalence and genetic diversity of Blastocystis sp. among hospitalized patients with gastrointestinal symptoms, finding that 3.9% tested positive.
- The research revealed a significant link between positivity rates and patients of African origin, particularly those over 18 years old, while identifying different subtypes of the pathogen among local and immigrant patients.
- Additionally, it was noted that 33% of the positive cases had co-infections with other pathogens such as Giardia duodenalis and Clostridioides difficile, highlighting the need for further exploration of the interactions between these infections and Blastocystis sp. in diverse patient populations.
MiRNAs regulate both physiological and pathological heart functions. Altered expression of miRNAs is associated with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), making miRNAs attractive therapeutic strategies for the diagnosis and treatment of heart diseases. A recent publication defined, for the first time, the term theranoMiRNA, meaning the miRNAs that may be used both for diagnosis and treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ketogenic diet (KD), a diet high in fat and protein but low in carbohydrates, is gaining much interest due to its positive effects, especially in neurodegenerative diseases. Beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), the major ketone body produced during the carbohydrate deprivation that occurs in KD, is assumed to have neuroprotective effects, although the molecular mechanisms responsible for these effects are still unclear. Microglial cell activation plays a key role in the development of neurodegenerative diseases, resulting in the production of several proinflammatory secondary metabolites.
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