Endocrine Abstracts

A 69-year-old man presented in a life threatening hypoglycaemic coma which following resuscitation required continuous intravenous dextrose to maintain euglycaemia. Random blood sugar was confirmed at 0.7 mmol/l. Past medical history included a large (19×14.5 cm) recurrent malignant fibrous tumour of the pleura which was resected in 1989 but recurred in 2006. At that time the tumour was thought not to be responsive to chemotherapy and radiotherapy and debulking surgery wa...

A 45-year-old professional jockey presented as an emergency with a 10 day history of polyuria and polydipsia in excess of 10 l daily. 10 days previously he had suffered a head injury complicated by concussion while horse racing in Norway. There was no significant past medical or drug history but he admitted to the use of ‘wasting’ methods prior to a race to maintain his body weight. Examination was unremarkable. Renal function, liver function, thyroid function, serum...

Introduction: Echocardiographic studies in patients with primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) suggest that up to half of patients have left ventricular dysfunction and an increased risk of congestive heart failure that improve after parathyroidectomy. The cardiac hormone B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) is an independent risk marker for heart failure.Methods: Prospective cohort study of consecutive unselected patients with biochemical diagnosis of PHPT. Pl...

PYY is secreted postprandially from the endocrine L-cells of the gastrointestinal tract. PYY3–36, the major circulating form of PYY, reduces food intake in humans and rodents via high affinity binding to the auto-inhibitory NPY receptor, Y2R, within the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus.Aims: To investigate (1) the effects of length of fast on the anorexigenic actions of PYY3–36; (2) the effects of early light phase administrat...

A 25 year old man, with no significant past medical history and on no medication, presented to Accident and Emergency with collapse. He was anuric, hypotensive, with a sodium of 107 and a potassium of 8.8. Electrocardiographic changes showed widening of the QRS complex and tall tented T waves. He was in prerenal renal failure with a creatinine of 377 and urea of 36.9.This presentation came after a week of feeling non-specifically unwell, progressive fati...

A 27-year-old woman presented with severely symptomatic Graves and ophthalmopathy (FT4 49.1; TSI 53). Despite 60 mg carbimazole and 240 mg propranolol she required admission to control her symptoms and thyroid function, changing to propylthiouracil 800 mg daily with propranolol (FT4 19.9). Whilst considering thyroidectomy a 6-week pregnancy was confirmed. She relapsed (? compliance) and was admitted at 14 weeks with hyperemesis gravidarum (FT4 >77.2), which responded to an...

Introduction: Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are submicron vesicles released by most cells. They contain protein, enzymes and microRNA of the donor cells and are believed to play a role in paracrine communication. Circulating EVs might reflect heightened immune/inflammatory status in obese individuals and play a role in initiation/modulation of chronic low grade inflammation associated with obesity.Aims: To compare circulating plasma EVs between healthy vo...

Leptin is best known as an appetite and metabolic rate modulator secreted from fat, but it also has a range of other functions including modulation in reproductive physiology. To date, most studies examining the role of leptin in male reproduction have focussed on individual tissues, often in vitro. In the current report, a bolus physiological dose of iodinated leptin was administered intravenously to male mice to and samples collected over a one hour time course to d...

Background: Long term remission in paediatric onset hyperthyroidism (HT) is low at 20–30% compared to 40–50% in adult onset HT. There are very few studies which report long-term follow-up of paediatric onset HT especially into adulthood and factors which can predict a need for definitive treatment in the long-term.Objectives: To evaluate the long-term outcome of paediatric onset HT with follow-up into adulthood and identify any early predictors...

Background: WHO has recommended that adults of South Asian (SA) ethnicity need to have lower body mass index (BMI) cut-off to define overweight and obesity compared to White Caucasians (WC). The background for this is the increasing evidence that obesity-related morbidities are much higher at a lower BMI among SA compared to WC adults.Objective: The aim of our study was to evaluate differences in measures of insulin sensitivity amongst children and adole...