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Endocrine Abstracts (2018) 56 S18.1 | DOI: 10.1530/endoabs.56.S18.1

Italy.


The different balance in the sex hormones, androgens and estrogens, is a cardinal aspect of the biology of gender difference and plays a fundamental role in maintaining the physiological state at each age of life. However, the imbalance in sex hormones is involved in some metabolic diseases, particularly type 2 diabetes, with androgens playing an interesting sexually dimorphic role. In particular, the bulk of evidence suggests that hyperandrogenism in women or hypogonadism in men facilitate the appearance of type 2 diabetes mainly via the promotion of metabolically unfavourable changes in body composition. The sexual dimorphism of androgens in the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes leads to inequalities in both preventive strategies and treatment between women and men. Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common hyperandrogenic disorder in women with a prevalence in fertile European women of around 6–8%. In these women, hyperandrogenism is associated with chronic anovulation and infertility. The prevalence of insulin resistance, obesity, and the metabolic syndrome in general is also high. In addition, the literature supports the notion that PCOS is associated with an increased susceptibility to develop type 2 diabetes at any age and that androgens are the main link between PCOS and type 2 diabetes. To support this assumption there are only few data that demonstrate that antiandrogenic therapy in women affected by PCOS is able to improve IR, decrease abdominal adiposity and probably prevent metabolic complications such as type 2 diabetes.

Volume 56

20th European Congress of Endocrinology

Barcelona, Spain
19 May 2018 - 22 May 2018

European Society of Endocrinology 

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