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Vitamin C is synthesized by almost all animals. However, for humans, it is a vitamin that needs constant replenishment in the diet. While its role as an anti-oxidant and for preventing scurvy have been known for a long time, novel functions and unrecognized associations continue to be identified for this enigmatic molecule. In the past decade, new details have emerged regarding differences in its uptake by oral and intravenous modes. While vitamin C deficiency remains largely unknown and poorly addressed in many segments of the population, novel pharmacological roles for high-dose, intravenous vitamin C in many disease states have now been postulated and investigated. This has shifted its role in health and disease from the long-perceived notion as merely a vitamin and an anti-oxidant to a pleiotropic molecule with a broad anti-inflammatory, epigenetic, and anti-cancer profile. This Special Issue comprises original research papers and reviews on vitamin C metabolism and function that relate to the following topics: understanding its role in the modulation of inflammation and immunity, therapeutic applications and safety of pharmacological ascorbate in disease, and the emerging role of vitamin C as a pleiotropic modulator of critical care illness and cancer.

Vitamin C --- Physiological effect.

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Taurine (2-aminoethanesulfonic acid) has been reported to have a lot of physiological and pharmacological functions in various tissues, cells, and organelles in many species since discovered in the gall bladder of bovine in 1827, and its novel functions and roles have now been focused in many fields. This Special Issue consisted of eight original and two review articles contains the newest findings on the roles of taurine as an essential nutrient for development and growth in fetuses and infants, and functional maintenance in the brain, skeletal muscles, and others in adults, in mammalian, chicken, and fish.

Taurine --- Physiological effect --- Metabolism

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Iron is an essential element for numerous fundamental biologic processes. Iron-containing proteins are required for vital cellular and organismal functions including oxygen transport, mitochondrial respiration, intermediary and xenobiotic metabolism, nucleic acid replication and repair, host defense, and cell signaling. However, excess iron is toxic. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the essential role of iron in biology, the regulation of systemic and cellular iron homeostasis, and how imbalances in iron homeostasis contribute to disease.

Iron --- Metabolism. --- Physiological effect.

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Although free radicals perform some useful immune functions, they can also damage healthy cells through a process called oxidation. Antioxidants reduce the effect of free radicals by binding together with these harmful molecules, decreasing their destructive power. This book highlights various issues of free radical biology from the perspective of antioxidant defense mechanisms. It also provides useful information on gene modulation, radiation-generated reactive oxygen species-induced apoptosis in cancer, and environmental aspects associated with free radicals' exposure on living systems.

Free radicals (Chemistry) --- Physiological effect.

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Caffeine is present in coffee and many other beverages and is the most widely used central nervous system stimulant. Coffee drinking or caffeine supplementation may have a role in preventing cardiometabolic and endocrine disease, neuroinflammation, cancer, and even all-cause mortality. Other aspects are either less known or controversial, including the effects on the brain-gut axis, neurodevelopment, behavior, pain, muscle-skeletal health, skin or sexual function. Studies focusing on special populations (neonates, children, adolescents, athletes, elderly, pregnant and nonpregnant women), or interactions with other drugs and foods, are relatively scarce but of obvious interest. Other compounds present in coffee and other caffeinated food stuffs may affect caffeine´s physiological effects with a tremendous impact on health. This Special Issue, which contains twenty-one manuscripts, has focused on some of these varied topics, providing further evidence of the multiple health benefits that coffee/caffeine intake may exert in humans, at least in specific populations (with a particular genetic profile or suffering from specific diseases). However, the specific effects in the different organs and systems, as well as the mechanisms involved are not yet clear. Furthermore, within the current context aiming to sustainable development, the coffee plant Coffee sp. and its so-far relatively neglected by-products are expected to become soon a source of ingredients for new functional foods whose properties will need to be precisely determined. We hope the readers of this Special Issue will find inspiration for new studies on the topic.

Biology --- Caffeine --- History. --- Physiological effect.