Scheme 1.

A dysfunction of a proper negative feedback regulation of the inflammatory response may result in the stabilization of a low-grade chronic activation of a vicious circle, characterized by a constant generation of a pro-oxidant environment, triggering in turn a sub-clinical systemic pro-inflammatory status. This condition, to be defined as “OxInflammation,” can induce a derangement from adaptive homeostatic capacities of the organism and eventually lead to overt pathological metabolic dysfunctions such as type II diabetes and related degenerative disease. OxInflammation plays an important role both in determining the clinical outcomes associated to several “genetic diseases,” such as Down syndrome, Rett Syndrome and sickle cells disease and also to other complex diseases determined by complex gene/environment interaction, such as metabolic syndrome and related degenerative complications, including cardiovascular diseases and cancer.