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Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is a strong predictor of morbidity and mortality in patients with obesity. This study investigates the CRF range and its clinical determinants in patients with obesity. Moreover, a practical proposal for CRF interpretation is provided. In this study, 542 patients (69% females) with BMI ≥ 30 kg/m 2 performed an incremental cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET). Patients had a median (IQR) age of 47.0 (6.2) years with a mean BMI of 41.7 ± 6.7 kg/m 2 . Normal values curves of VO 2 peak/kg showed a median (IQR) of 20.3 (37.6) mL/min/kg. The lower-quartile threshold of VO 2 peak/kg was at 17.9 mL/min/kg. Analysis of covariance revealed that VO 2 peak/kg inversely correlates with age and BMI with a significant age × BMI interaction effect (all p < 0.0001); as BMI class increases, CRF decreases, but a smaller age-related decline in VO 2 peak/kg is observed. A multivariate logistic regression demonstrated that belonging to the lower quartile of VO 2 peak/kg was independently determined by age (OR 2.549, 95% CI 1.205-5.392, p < 0.0001) and BMI (OR 5.864, 95% CI 2.920-11.778, p < 0.0001) but not by comorbidities. At very high BMI, the effect of age on functional capacity is lower, suggesting that BMI acts as an "aging factor" on CRF. Age and BMI, but not comorbidities, are independent determinants of low VO 2 peak/kg.

Inorganic chiral nanoparticles are attracting more and more attention due to their peculiar optical properties and potential biological applications, such as bioimaging, therapeutics, and diagnostics. Among inorganic chiral nanoparticles, gold chiral nanostructures were demonstrated to be very interesting in this context, with good physical chemical stability and also the possibility to decorate the surface, improving biomedical application as the interaction with the bio-systems. Gold (Au) nanostructures were synthesized according to a seed-mediated procedure which envisages the use of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as the capping agent and L- and D-cysteine to promote chirality. Au nanostructures have been demonstrated to have opposite circular dichroism signals depending on the amino acid enantiomer used during the synthesis. Then, a procedure to decorate the Au surface with penicillamine, a drug used for the treatment of Wilson's disease, was developed. The composite material of gold nanoparticles/penicillamine was characterized using electron microscopy, and the penicillamine functionalization was monitored by means of UV-Visible, Raman, and infrared spectroscopy, highlighting the formation of the Au-S bond. Furthermore, electron circular dichroism was used to monitor the chirality of the synthesized nanostructures and it was demonstrated that both penicillamine enantiomers can be successfully bonded with both the enantiomers of the gold nanostructures without affecting gold nanoparticles' chirality. The effective modification of nanostructures' surfaces via penicillamine introduction allowed us to address the important issue of controlling chirality and surface properties in the chiral nano-system.

Epidemiological observations, experimental studies and clinical data show that obesity is associated with a higher risk of developing different types of cancer; however, proof of a cause-effect relationship that meets the causality criteria is still lacking. Several data suggest that the adipose organ could be the protagonist in this crosstalk. In particular, the adipose tissue (AT) alterations occurring in obesity parallel some tumour behaviours, such as their theoretically unlimited expandability, infiltration capacity, angiogenesis regulation, local and systemic inflammation and changes to the immunometabolism and secretome. Moreover, AT and cancer share similar morpho-functional units which regulate tissue expansion: the adiponiche and tumour-niche, respectively. Through direct and indirect interactions involving different cellular types and molecular mechanisms, the obesity-altered adiponiche contributes to cancer development, progression, metastasis and chemoresistance. Moreover, modifications to the gut microbiome and circadian rhythm disruption also play important roles. Clinical studies clearly demonstrate that weight loss is associated with a decreased risk of developing obesity-related cancers, matching the reverse-causality criteria and providing a causality correlation between the two variables. Here, we provide an overview of the methodological, epidemiological and pathophysiological aspects, with a special focus on clinical implications for cancer risk and prognosis and potential therapeutic interventions.

Polymeric nanoparticles made of the copolymer Poly(L-lactide- co -caprolactone- co -glycolide) were prepared using the solvent evaporation method. Two different surfactants, polyvinyl alcohol and dextran, and a mixture of the two were employed. The three types of nanoparticles were used as hosting carriers of two chemotherapeutic drugs, the hydrophilic doxorubicin and the hydrophobic SN-38. The morphostructural characterization showed similar features for the three types of nanoparticles, while the drug encapsulation efficiency indicated that the dextran-based systems are the most effective with both drugs. Cellular studies with breast cancer cells were performed to compare the delivery capability and the cytotoxicity profile of the three nanosystems. The results show that the unloaded nanoparticles are highly biocompatible at the administered concentrations and confirmed that dextran-coated nanoparticles are the most efficient vectors to release the two drugs, exerting cytotoxic activity. PVA, on the other hand, shows limited drug release in vitro, probably due to strong interactions with both drugs. Data also show the release is more efficient for doxorubicin than for SN-38; indeed, the doxorubicin IC 50 value for the dextran-coated nanoparticles was about 35% lower than the free drug. This indicates that these nanocarriers are suitable candidates to deliver hydrophilic drugs while needing further modification to host hydrophobic molecules.

Alström syndrome (ALMS) is an ultra-rare monogenic disease characterized by insulin resistance, multi-organ fibrosis, obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and hypertriglyceridemia with high and early incidence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). We evaluated liver fibrosis quantifying liver stiffness (LS) by shear wave elastography (SWE) and steatosis using ultrasound sonographic (US) liver/kidney ratios (L/K) in 18 patients with ALMS and 25 controls, and analyzed the contribution of metabolic and genetic alterations in NAFLD progression. We also genetically characterized patients. LS and L/K values were significantly higher in patients compared with in controls ( p < 0.001 versus p = 0.013). In patients, LS correlated with the Fibrosis-4 Index and age, while L/K was associated with triglyceride levels. LS showed an increasing trend in patients with metabolic comorbidities and displayed a significant correlation with waist circumference, the homeostasis model assessment, and glycated hemoglobin A1c. SWE and US represent promising tools to accurately evaluate early liver fibrosis and steatosis in adults and children with ALMS during follow-up. We described a new pathogenic variant of exon 8 in ALMS1 . Patients with ALMS displayed enhanced steatosis, an early increased age-dependent LS that is associated with obesity and T2DM but also linked to genetic alterations, suggesting that ALMS1 could be involved in liver fibrogenesis.

Carbon nanomaterials are a group of materials characterized by sp 2 /sp 3 carbon backbone which, combined with surface atoms and/or chemical groups, ensures peculiar physical chemical features for a wide range of applications. Among these materials, carbon dots and carbon nanoparticles belong to carbon nanomaterials with a few nanometer dimensions. In this work, carbon nanoparticles were produced from spent coffee grounds as sustainable carbon source through a simple, cheap and eco-friendly procedure according to an oxidation process (at controlled temperature) driven by hydrogen peroxide. Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) and fluorescence, UV-Vis absorption, FT-IR and Raman spectroscopy were used to assess the formation of carbon nanomaterials of about 10 nm with the typical emission and absorption properties of carbon dots and peculiar surface features. In fact, the presence of heteroatoms, i.e., phosphorus, and the carbonyl/carboxyl surface groups on carbon nanoparticles, was proposed to confer peculiar properties allowing the fast Mn(VII) reduction to Mn(II) at neutral pH and the Cr(VI) reduction to Cr(III) in weak acid aqueous media.

The burst of research papers focused on the tissue engineering and regeneration recorded in the last years is justified by the increased skills in the synthesis of nanostructures able to confer peculiar biological and mechanical features to the matrix where they are dispersed. Inorganic, organic and hybrid nanostructures are proposed in the literature depending on the characteristic that has to be tuned and on the effect that has to be induced. In the field of the inorganic nanoparticles used for decorating the bio-scaffolds, the most recent contributions about the paramagnetic and superparamagnetic nanoparticles use was evaluated in the present contribution. The intrinsic properties of the paramagnetic nanoparticles, the possibility to be triggered by the simple application of an external magnetic field, their biocompatibility and the easiness of the synthetic procedures for obtaining them proposed these nanostructures as ideal candidates for positively enhancing the tissue regeneration. Herein, we divided the discussion into two macro-topics: the use of magnetic nanoparticles in scaffolds used for hard tissue engineering for soft tissue regeneration.

In recent years, the presence of numerous xenobiotic substances, such as antibiotics, has been detected in water environments. They can be considered as environmental contaminants, even if their effect on human health has yet to be totally understood. Several approaches have been studied for the removal of these kinds of pollutants. Among these compounds, tetracycline (TC), a broad-spectrum antibiotic, is one of the most commonly found in water due to its widespread use. In the context of reducing the presence of TC in aqueous solution, in this contribution, a composite catalyst based on zinc oxide (ZnO) and iron oxide (γ-Fe 2 O 3 ) was developed and its photocatalytic properties were investigated. The catalytic materials were synthesized by a microwave-assisted aqueous solution method and characterized by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM), X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. The TC concentration was evaluated by spectrophotometer measurements at specific time intervals. The performed photocatalytic experiments clearly demonstrated that the ZnO/γ-Fe 2 O 3 composite catalyst presents significant photocatalytic activity, indeed a TC degradation efficiency of 88.52% was registered after 150 min. The presence of iron oxide in the structure of the catalyst enhances both the surface area and the pore volume, facilitating the adsorption of the analyte on the surface of nanostructures, a fundamental phase to optimize a photodegradation process. Moreover, ZnO was found to play the key role in the photocatalytic process assisted by γ-Fe 2 O 3 which enhanced the TC degradation efficiency by 20%.