Endocrine Abstracts

Management of Thyrotoxicosis in a Non-compliant Pregnant WomanA 23-year-old woman with Grave's disease presented to thyroid clinic 29 weeks into her first pregnancy having recently moved into the area. She had failed to attend hospital thyroid clinics elsewhere and frequently changed her address.Despite propylthiouracil 300 mg daily she had marked tremor, tachycardia 100 bpm, ophthalmopathy, and a large smooth goitre. TSH <0.0...

Introduction: The availability of the body’s most abundant amino acid, glutamine is compromised in obesity-associated diabetes. This may impair glucose metabolism by increasing hepatic insulin resistance, oxidative stress and the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).Objective: Evaluate the effects of free and dipeptide (DIP, L-alanyl-L-glutamine) forms of L-glutamine on glucose metaboli...

Serum or plasma human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) immunoassays are a cornerstone in diagnosis and monitoring of pregnancy [1]. Although these assays show very satisfying performance, pathophysiological (e.g., menopause induced pituitary secretion of hCG, familial hCG syndrome, exogenous hCG injections) and analytical (e.g., interference of heterophilic antibodies or anti-hCG antibodies, lack of specificity of older assays) determinants may rarely cause false positive results ...

Testosterone reduces myocardial ischaemia in men with coronary artery disease (CAD) and improves symptoms and exercise capacity in men with congestive heart failure (CHF), effects proposed to be due to testosterone-induced vasodilatation. Isolated vessel studies suggest this occurs via a calcium antagonistic action upon voltage-gated Ca2+ channels but this has yet to be investigated directly.We therefore employed patch clamp methodology to stu...

Background: PPI are known to diminish the intestinal absorption of L-T4, which is commonly ingested as tablets of L-T4 sodium salt. However, a liquid formulation is available (Tirosint, oral solution, IBSA Farmaceutici Italia s.r.l., Italy), in which the hormone is solubilized in 28.8% ethyl alcohol. One ml of this formulation (=28 drops) contains 100 mcg L-T4 sodium salt in 243 mg ethanol. Because this formulation contains L...

A 63-year old woman presented with a 3 weeks history of sweating, panic attacks and vomiting. Urine dipstick on admission was positive for glucose (3+) and ketones (2+) and lab glucose was elevated at 26 mmol/l. Based on the findings she was treated as diabetic ketoacidosis and commenced on insulin. Further investigations showed an elevated urinary catecholamines and marked hypercalcaemia (adjusted calcium 3.10 mmol/l) with unsuppressed PTH at 71 pg/ml (normal 12–72 pg/ml...

We present a case of a 76-year-old Caucasian woman with combined primary hypoparathyroidism and vitamin D deficiency resulting in life-threatening hypocalcaemia.She has a history of COPD and initially presented in 2002 with an exacerbation of her airways disease. During treatment for her condition an incidental note was made of hypocalcaemia (calcium 1.62 mmol/l). PTH was minimally elevated at the time but 25-hydroxycholecalciferol was low (4.2 ng/ml). S...

The thyroid gland functions in supplying thyroid hormones (TH) to the body periphery, which is enabled by cathepsin-mediated thyroglobulin proteolysis and TH translocation across membranes by the Mct8, Mct10, and Lat2 transporters. Previously, we showed that cathepsin K-deficient mice feature normal thyroid phenotypes which is, in part, due to the functional compensation through cathepsin L upregulation that is independent of the classical hypothalamus–pituitary–thyr...

We undertook a retrospective audit of patients with primary hyperparathyroidism. Patients were identified from the Bradford Endocrine Database.About 101 patients were identified. 13 were incorrectly labelled and excluded. Case records of 88 patients; median age 64 (range 17–87) years, 69 F:19 M, were examined. At diagnosis median corrected calcium was 2.72 (range 2.45–3.69) mmol/l, median PTH 14 (range 3–182) pmol/l and mean 24 h urine cal...

The diet of patients exposed to stress had been shown to be low in fibre, low in fruit and vegetables, low in vitamins C and E, and beta-carotene, high in sugar, and high in saturated fat. The implications of these findings are two-fold: the diet associated with stress is similar to those in patients with features of the Metabolic syndrome (Met-S – visceral obesity, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, hypertension).Aim: The aim of the present study was to ass...