Endocrine Abstracts

Background: One of the major limits of gene therapy with sodium iodide symporter (NIS), which enables cells to be subjected to radioiodine therapy, is that NIS transfected cells rapidly release the intracellular iodine.Materials and methods: We transfected two human anaplastic (FRO) and medullary (TT) thyroid cancer derived cell lines, unable to take up iodine, with human NIS cDNA. The possibility of increasing the iodine retention time by treating cells...

Serotonergic transmission is involved in eating behaviour and body weight control. Comparison of SERT properties in blood platelets and serotonergic synaptosomes suggests that the human platelet can serve as an appropriate model for the transport, metabolism and release of serotonin by serotonergic neurons.Aim of this study was to evaluate SERT expression in platelets obtained from overweight or obese subjects (OB) as compared with normal weight healthy volunteers (C), and to ...

Obesity is a major cause of chronic hypoventilation and/or obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS). Aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of pulmonary dysfunction and the relationship between OSAS and several clinical, functional and polysomnographics parameters in severely obese patients. 101 subjects (68 females and 33 males) aged 49.2±13.2 years (mean±S.D.), with BMI 46.8±6.5 Kg/m2 were enrolled. Sleep quality and daytime ...

Obesity is a well established risk factor for congestive heart failure. The existence of an ‘obese cardiomyopathy’ has been hypothesized, as the complex combination of the effects of both hemodynamic and metabolic alterations. Aim of this study was to analyze the effect of bariatric surgery on the early myocardial alterations detected in a group of severe obese patients by high frame rate integrated backscatter (IBS). Twenty severely obese patients (5 males, 15 femal...