Memorial University of Newfoundland

About: Memorial University of Newfoundland is a education organization based out in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 13818 authors who have published 27785 publications receiving 743594 citations. The organization is also known as: Memorial University & Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Genetic epidemiology of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.

Abstract: Psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis (PsA) are interrelated disorders, as most patients with PsA also have psoriasis. Thus it is not surprising that epidemiological and immunogenetic studies have uncovered important links between these two disorders. Both disorders are highly heritable, and the prevalence of psoriasis is 19 times higher among first degree relatives of probands with PsA compared with the general population. Multiple human leucocyte antigen (HLA) associations are shared between psoriasis and PsA, though the magnitudes of these associations differ between the diseases. Genome-wide linkage studies have noted overlapping regions of significance for these two disorders within and outside the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) region. Thus, exploration of the genetic basis of psoriasis will likely strengthen the contention of an underlying genetic susceptibility for PsA and vice versa.

Nutrition, immunity and infection: From basic knowledge of dietary manipulation of immune responses to practical application of ameliorating suffering and improving survival

Abstract: Thy food is such As has been belch’d on by infected lungs. William Shakespeare, Pericles , IV, vi, 178. The causal relationship between the conjugal pair of famine and pestilence has been known for millennia. It is recognized that malnutrition and infection are the two major obstacles for health, development, and survival worldwide, and poverty and ignorance are the most significant contributing factors (1, 2). Epidemiological observations have confirmed that infection and malnutrition aggravate each other. However, nutrition does not influence all infections equally (3, 4). For some infections (e.g., pneumonia, bacterial and viral diarrhea, measles, tuberculosis), there is overwhelming evidence that the clinical course and final outcome are affected adversely by nutritional deficiency. For others (e.g., viral encephalitis, tetanus), the effect of nutritional status is minimal. For still others (e.g., influenza virus, human immunodeficiency virus), nutrition exerts a moderate influence. It is now established that nutritional deficiency is commonly associated with impaired immune responses, particularly cell-mediated immunity, phagocyte function, cytokine production, secretory antibody response, antibody affinity, and the complement system (1, 5, 6). In fact, malnutrition is the commonest cause of immunodeficiency worldwide. There was a three-pronged impetus for systematic studies of immune responses in undernourished individuals. First, there was a plethora of public health data indicating an interaction, usually synergistic but occasionally antagonistic, between malnutrition and infection (3). Second, new concepts and novel techniques in immunology emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Third, dramatic human stories and demographic data stimulated individual scientists, as the following example shows (7). My interest in nutrition-immunity interactions was kindled by two cases: first, the story with an unhappy ending, of a child; second, the bleak scenario of the Third World. Eighteen-month-old Kamala was thin, her skin pale as wax, and her lungs screaming for air. She wore a …