Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Diagnosing GDH in children remains matter of debate due to variability in results obtained with pharmacological tests, one child may fail one test, but pass another. Spontaneous GH secretion assessment is costly, time consuming, and results may show poor correlations with those obtained with provocative tests. To add to diagnosic power of provocative tests, testing IGF-I and IGF-PB3 have been suggested. In recent years, however, the contribution of IGF-PB3 assay to...

Background and aims: Growth hormone and insulin-like growth factors to be involved in the pathogenesis of diabetic kidney disease. The aim of this study was ultrastructural evaluation of octreotide acetate on kidney tissue in streptozotocin (STZ) induced diabetic rats.Material and methods: Twenty-four male Spraque–Dawley rats divided into 3 groups; control (C), diabetic (D) and diabetic with octreotide aceatate (DO). The all diabetic rats were treat...

Therapeutic interferon-β (IFN-β) preparations have been approved for treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS). However, the development of neutralising antibodies (NAbs) against IFN-β in MS patients reduces therapeutic efficacy. Early detection of NAbs is critical for the modification of treatment regimes. IFN-β exerts its biological effects by binding to receptors on target cells and stimulating the expression of IFN-β-inducible genes. Measurement of end...

Background: The growth hormone system (growth hormone, GH and insulin-like-growth-factor I, IGF-I) might be implicated in congestive heart failure (CHF). In experimental models IGF-I increases cardiac contractility and reduces apoptosis of myocytes exposed to ischemic injury. In clinical studies GH-therapy has been used in CHF. One previous population based investigation showed that low levels of IGF-I was associated with an increased incidence of CHF. The result of this inves...

Bivalent iron (Fe2+), which initiates the Fenton reaction (Fe2++H2O2+H+→Fe3++•OH+H2O), is frequently used to experimentally induce oxidative damage to macromolecules. Growth hormone (GH) and the main mediator of its action – insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) – are involved in oxidative processes, lipid peroxidation (LPO) included.The aim of the...

Iron participates in the Fenton reaction (Fe2++H2O2+H+→Fe3++•OH+H2O), the most basic reaction of oxidative stress. This transition metal is required to keep oxidative balance, although iron overload is associated with enhanced oxidative damage and cancer initiation. Growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) are also involved in oxidative processes, lipid peroxidation incl...

In GH deficiency (GHD), fat mass is elevated compared to normal subjects. Leptin is positively related to fat mass, BMI and food intake, while ghrelin correlates negatively. During an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), leptin increases in obese subjects and generally does not change in normal weight subjects. Ghrelin decreases during OGTT. We performed a cross-sectional study in order to investigate the influence of GH-substitution on leptin and ghrelin in GHD.<p class="a...

Patients with adult onset GHD (AO-GHD) manifest features of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) (abdominal obesity, dyslipidemia and insulin resistance), a condition associated with increased risk of diabetes mellitus (DM).We assessed metabolic status before and after 2 years of GH treatment and the occurrence of de novo DM in 712 patients with AO-GHD from HypoCCS drawn from the US (32.2%) and Europe (67.8%). Patients were divided into four BMI categori...

Background: Obesity is a major risk factor for the development of chronic diseases and a determinant of cardiovascular disease. Divergent associations between obesity and hormonal changes have been reported. The objective of the present study was to analyse the associations between different anthropometric measurements and serum hormone levels including insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), thyroid-stimulation hormone (TSH), prolactin, and testosterone.M...

Objective: A cytosine-adenine (CA)n microsatellite repeat polymorphism in the promoter region of the insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) gene has reported to be associated with IGF-1 serum levels, birth weight, body height, bone mineral density and risk for type 2 diabetes and myocardial infarction. Carriers and non-carriers of the most frequent allele (length 192 base pairs (bp)) showed significantly different total IGF-1 serum levels. This polymorphism may direct...

Background: Acromegaly is associated with increased morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease. Several studies indicate that reduction of growth hormone (GH) to <1 μg/l or normalization of serum IGF-I reduces mortality to expected levels. Inflammatory markers, such as C-reactive protein (CRP) or haemostatic markers, such as fibrinogen have emerged as important cardiovascular risk markers in the general population.Objective and design: ...

Animal and observational studies suggest that the IGF axis is involved in the pathogenesis of ischemic stroke; moreover, endogenous IGF-I could influence the evolution of ischemic stroke in humans and thereby contribute to an improved clinical and functional outcome. To assess and correlate the IGF-I axis with biochemical parameters in young patients experiencing ischemic stroke (32 aged 15–45 years,19F, BMI: 25.5±3.4 kg/m2), we evaluated IGF-I, IGFBP-3, A...

Objective: To evaluate the pituitary hormone axes in adolescents with constitutional tall stature (CTS).Materials and methods: About 120 patients (54 males and 66 females) with CTS aged 9.6–16.5 years (13.6±2.7 years, mean±S.D.) were enrolled in this study. Sixty-eight normal subjects (24 males and 44 females) aged 9.8–16.2 years (13.1±2.1 years), who were comparable in socioeconomic and nutritional terms, served a...

Objectives: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its soluble receptor (sVEGFR-1) are key regulators in human ovarian angiogenesis. VEGF promotes blood vessel growth while sVEGFR-1 is a VEGF antagonist. A promising candidate in sVEGFR-1 regulation is TIMP-1 (tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases 1), which is involved in extracellular matrix remodelling. The aim of our research is to determine if TIMP-1 influences sVEGFR-1 secretion in endothelial cells.<p class="a...

To elucidate the functional role of IGFBP-2 for in vivo skeletal muscle growth and function, skeletal muscle cellularity and metabolism as well as body growth and composition have been studied in a transgenic mouse model overexpressing IGFBP-2. Postnatal growth rate of transgenic mice (n=20) was clearly reduced from day 21 of age by 6–8% (P<0.05) compared with non-transgenic controls (n=37). At the final day of live (day 72 of age) body pro...