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In Bergamo there is a huge network of 46 "health promoting companies" following an accreditation system which requires the implementation of best practices on health promotion in the workplace. For some of these practices, Company Doctor are involved: management of smokers and workers with alcohol consumption; courses for employees about WHP, use of SMS and web-based systems. Local Public Health Authority has created an annual training which also provided tools to Doctors for their activities in the project. Nowadays 55 doctors have been trained. For Accreditation 2012 eight companies will declare as good practice the training of its CD about smoking and three companies their activities on alcohol abuse prevention and control.

In the context of the "WHP- District Network Project", 6 group-treatments for smoking cessation have been performed in five companies, with the voluntary participation of 88 smokers. Health professionals, with specific training, conducted the groups according to specific guidelines. The quitting rate recorded at the end of the course (and confirmed, in two groups, by measurement of exhaled CO) was on average 49% (range 34-70%). The abstainers at one year, recorded by a telephonic follow-up, mounted to 38% (range 29-50%, 4 courses out of 6). The courses have proved to be a good tool to help people to quit smoking and so reducing smoking-associated risks and its synergism with occupational risk factors.

At the A.O. Bolognini Seriate, within the WHP project, the 1942 employees have been evaluated, during the working suitability visit, for cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors. The following parameters were detected: height and weight measurement, calculation of BMI, abdominal circumference, lipid profile (total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, triglycerides), blood glucose. smoking habits, physical activities and sports activities. Each employee was also evaluated with Bioelectrical Impedence Analysis that allowed the acquisition of additional parameters such as the measure of muscle mass, fat mass, lean mass, body water, visceral fat and basal metabolic rate. Excess body fat is a cardiovascular risk factor underestimated by people, traditional tools of simple approach (weight, height, waist circumference, BMI) can often underestimate the presence of visceral fat, metabolically active and recognized risk factor even in normal weight subjects. The measurement of body fat with Bioelectrical Impedence Analysis has highlighted a high percentage of people with excess body fat, although classified as normal weight by calculation of BMI.

A population study on thirteen short tandem repeat (STR) loci was performed on 223 unrelated Italian Caucasians. The DNA was amplified by PCR. Separation and detection of the amplified STR fragments was carried out by use of 377 automated system (Applied Biosystems Division/Perkin Elmer). All loci meet Hardy-Weinberg expectations, and the data show only five departures out of seventy-eight pairwise locus tests which is close to expectations of 5% (5/78 = 6.4%). When correcting for multiple tests, there is little evidence for departures from expectations between loci. The combined Power of Exclusion for the thirteen STR loci is 0.99999270. The results demonstrate that these loci will be very useful for human identification in forensic cases in Italy.

33 subjects belonging to I.G.T. class according to N.D.D.G. criteria and controlled in our ambulatory, have been studied for the response to the tests usually employed for the investigation of parasympathetic and sympathetic cardiovascular innervation. We have found pathological values for the SL1 test and borderline values for SL2 and LS tests; on the contrary all the other tests presented normal values. The Authors conclude that signs of deterioration of cardiac and vascular innervation, especially regarding the parasympathetic nervous system, can be present also in the subjects showing a small glucose metabolism alteration. This subclinical alterations do not depend on factors which can interfere with the responses to the tests (as age, boyd weight, sex and presence or absence of diabetic familiarity) but on glucose metabolism alteration. Hence also the subjects with I.G.T. have to be considered as a at risk population, like the neuropathic diabetics.

Metabolic and toxic effects caused by prolonged daily ingestion of Liquorice are well known in the literature. Such acquisition doesn't seem to be known enough by practitioners and by common people. Besides active substances such as Glycyrrhizin , Liquorice contains even steroids similar to the adrenocortical ones; among these the most important is Beta-Glycyrrhetinic acid. This one, in vivo and in vitro, produces salt and water retention by means of a "DOCA-like" mineral-corticoid mechanism, and clear suppression of the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone axis. A low plasmatic level of Renin and Aldosterone is a common feature. The clinical picture in many ways is similar to the primary Aldosteronism and for this reason the above mentioned syndrome is usually called "Pseudoaldosteronism". Symptoms and signs can be classified into the following main groups: symptoms linked with water and salt retention: oedemas, hypertension, cardiac involvement. Symptoms linked with serum Potassium depletion: asthenia, paralysis (due to Potassium deficiency), myopathy with myoglobinuria. The diagnosis is essential based on an accurate pharmacological dietetic history, aimed to recognise an excessive use of Liquorice (pure or more often as substitute) in the screening of hypertension with or without hypopotassemia. Finally, the more or less quick normalisation of blood pressure and biochemical signs--as an "ex juvantibus" criterion--is the most important reason for the diagnosis. After a wide survey of the literature, the clinical and biological picture in four patients with chronic Liquorice ingestion and Pseudoaldosteronism syndrome is described.