Immunotoxicity, Immune Dysfunction, and Chronic Disease

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Introduction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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3. INTRODUCTION

   1. Introduction to Immunotoxicity

      • Keith D. Salazar, Rosana Schafer

      Pages 3-30

   2. The Environment-Immune Route to Chronic Disease

      • Rodney R. Dietert, Robert W. Luebke

      Pages 31-47

4. Allergic Diseases

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 49-49

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5. ALLERGIC DISEASES

   1. Asthma and Respiratory Allergic Disease

      • David M. Lehmann, Marc A. Williams

      Pages 51-101

   2. Cutaneous Allergies

      • David A. Basketter, John P. McFadden

      Pages 103-126

   3. Food Allergies

      • Christal C. Bowman

      Pages 127-149

6. Autoimmune and Inflammatory Diseases and Conditions

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 151-151

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7. AUTOIMMUNE AND INFLAMMATORY DISEASES AND CONDITIONS

   1. Factors Involved in Onset of Type 1 Diabetes

      • Anne Cooke, Paola Zaccone

      Pages 153-170

   2. Rheumatoid Arthritis

      • Jean C. Pfau

      Pages 171-192

   3. Environment, Immune Dysfunction, and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

      • Moran Landau Rabbi, Ilan Ben-Zvi, Nancy Agmon-Levin, Yehuda Shoenfeld

      Pages 193-213

   4. Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Inflammation: A Hypothetical View

      • Margaret S. Bynoe, Christophe Viret

      Pages 215-252

   5. Immune Dysfunction in Autism Spectrum Disorders

      • Milo Careaga, Judy Van de Water, Paul Ashwood

      Pages 253-269

   6. Atherosclerosis and Inflammatory Heart Disease

      • DeLisa Fairweather

      Pages 271-289

   7. Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Celiac Disease: Environmental Risks Factors and Consequences

      • Rodney R. Dietert

      Pages 291-312

   8. COPD and Other Inflammatory Diseases of the Lung: Focus on AhR Signaling

      • Celine A. Beamer, Benjamin P. Seaver, David M. Shepherd

      Pages 313-343

   9. Environment, the Immune System, and Depression: An Integrative Review and Discussion of the Infection-Defense Hypothesis

      • Midori Tanaka, Sherry Anders, Dennis K. Kinney

      Pages 345-385

8. Infections and Cancer

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 387-387

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9. INFECTIONS AND CANCER

   1. Environmental Toxicants and Susceptibility to Infection

      • Carsten Heilmann

      Pages 389-398

Chronic diseases are the leading cause of deaths worldwide and according to the World Economics Council and the Harvard School of Public Health, the cost of chronic diseases is expected to reach a staggering 48% of global gross domestic product by the year 2030.  The urgency of the issue was demonstrated in 2011 when for only the second time in its existence, the U.N. General Assembly brought a health issue to the floor for consideration: chronic diseases.

To date, most considerations of the issue have approached the topic from the vantage point that chronic diseases are a myriad of largely unconnected diseases and conditions arising in diverse tissues, organs and physiological systems. This book, Immunotoxicity, Immune Dysfuction, and Chronic Disease, deviates from that prior model.  It considers the interconnectivity of chronic diseases with both environmental insult of the immune system and subsequent immune dysfunction and inflammatory dysregulation as theunderlying basis for many, if not most, chronic diseases. 

This change in the perception of environment-immune linkages to chronic disease is significant and has immediate implications both for the prevention of disease as well as for the development of more effective therapeutic approaches.  Rather than considering environmental factors and types of reported immune alterations (e.g., depressed humoral immunity)  as is common in books involving immunotoxicity, the present book approaches the environment-immune-disease triad  from the standpoint of the disease.  Each chapter emphasizes one or more specific immune dysfunction-based chronic disease(s) or condition(s) (e.g., asthma, atherosclerosis, multiple sclerosis, lupus) and describes: 1)  the suggested  environmental risk factors, 2) the underlying immune dysfunction(s) associated with the disease and 3) the overall health consequences of the disease. 

This book isan early entry for a new Toxicology book series for Springer titled: Molecular and Integrative Toxicology (MaIT).  The series will feature detailed research information, but in the context of a more integrative or holistic framework.   As part of this framework, the chapters will contain a section on  ”Key Points” as well as “Recommendations” where appropriate.  The goal is to cover the most timely, state-of-the-art issues in toxicology as well as to ensure that the information is maximally accessible for research scientists, teachers, physicians and students. 

We are particularly grateful to the numerous chapter authors for providing comprehensive and expert disease-oriented contributions.   We are also appreciative of their willingness to consider their material not as disparate pieces of what has become a major health crisis, but rather as key pieces in a network of apparently interconnected health challenges.

• Chronic disease
• Immune dysfunction
• Immune system
• Immunology
• Immunotoxicity
• Robert Luebke
• Rodney R. Dietert
• Toxicology

“The format of each chapter, starting with an abstract and key points on the first page followed by the body of the text, facilitates isolated reading of each chapter without the requirement for prior knowledge of the rest of the book … . The editors and contributors have created an interesting textbook which, as well as informing the immunotoxicologist, would be at home in the library of a range of institutes investigating any of the many diseases covered.” (Halima Moncrieffe, Immunology News, February, 2013)

• College of Veterinary Medicine, Dept. Microbiology & Immunology, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA

  Rodney R. Dietert

• National Health and Environmental Effects, Research Laboratories, US Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, USA

  Robert W. Luebke

Rodney R. Dietert is Professor of Immunotoxicology at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY whose interests focus on the prevention of chronic diseases via patterns that first emerge in children.  Dietert’s recent books include: Strategies For Protecting Your Child's Immune System (World Scientific, Singapore, Hackensack, NJ, 2010) and Immunotoxicity Testing (as Editor) (Springer, NY, 2010). He previously directed Cornell's Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors and the Institute for Comparative and Environmental Toxicology and served as a Senior Fellow in Cornell’s Center for the Environment.  Dietert recently served on panels for the Institute of Medicine (Agent Orange), the WHO (Immunotoxicology Risk Assessment) and the EPA (Trichloroethylene). 

 

Robert W. Luebke is an immunotoxicologist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Research Triangle Park, NC whose research is focused on the consequences of exposure to environmental chemicals on immune system homeostasis and resistance to infectious disease, and the development of alternative testing methods for high throughput screening of chemicals for immune system toxicity.  He has authored numerous book chapters on immunotoxicology and immunotoxicology methods and served as senior editor of the third edition of Immunotoxicology and Immunopharmacology (CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2007). Recent service activities include membership on a core writing group for the WHO Harmonized Immunotoxicity Risk Assessment Guidelines and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Technical Guidance 443, the  Extended One-Generation Reproductive Toxicity Study.

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