Endocrine Abstracts

We have used an androgen receptor knockout (ARKO) mouse model with an in-frame deletion of the 2nd zinc finger of the DNA binding domain, which abolishes the genomic actions of the AR to investigate androgen regulation of fat mass. At 12 weeks of age, ARKO males have increased adiposity compared to wildtype (WT) males, with subcutaneous fat mass increased by 75% (P<0.001, n≥17/group) and infrarenal fat mass increased by 36% (P<0.05, n&...

Objective: Androgen may be detrimental for vascular health in women. Sensitivity to androgen is influenced by the CAG repeat length of the androgen receptor (AR) gene. We investigated possible associations between the CAG repeat polymorphism with the severity of CAD in women undergoing coronary angiography.Methods: We examined 131 postmenopausal women (45–88 years). CAD severity was assessed by the number of coronary vessels with >50% stenosis. ...

Objective: The aim of this study is the characterizing of genetic variation in PvuII and XbaI polymorphisms of the ESR1 gene associated with age-dependent endocrine, metabolic and cognitive changes in a representative sample of Romanian population stratified by age and sex.Subjects and methods: Subjects, both genders aged between 20 and 80 yr were assigned to three lots 1) 177 subjects aged 55–80 years with moderately cognitive impairment (MCI) (MMS...

Objective: The human androgen recteptor (AR) contains a polyglutamine and a polyglycine stretch that are highly polymorphic and are coded by a CAG and GGN repeat, respectively, in exon 1 of the AR gene. Although in vitro studies indicated a possible effect on AR gene tanscription and clinical observations suggest a modulation of androgen action, the functional significance of the GGN repeat remains unclear.We wanted to assess whether the GGN repea...

Cushing’s syndrome during pregnancy is a rare disorder. A 32-year-old pregnant woman presented with Cushing’s syndrome. She had had a medical abortion complicated with bleeding for anencephaly by 15 weeks of her first pregnancy. At the beginning of her second pregnancy, typical clinical signs of Cushing syndrome developed: extensive red stretch marks on the abdomen and thighs, excessive weight gain (24 kg over 17 weeks) and high blood pressure (150/90 mmHg). By week ...

Glucocorticoids suppress insulin secretion, inhibit glucose uptake in peripheral tissues, and promote gluconeogenesis in the liver. These effects are known to be mediated via genomic mechanisms of slow onset. Despite recent evidence on rapid non-genomic glucocorticoid signaling in several organs, there is no information on rapid glucocorticoid effects on carbohydrate metabolism in humans.Here we present data on the rapid effects of hydrocortisone on the ...

Background: HIV-associated hypogonadism is a prevalent endocrine disorder, total testosterone (TT) test is not useful for its diagnosis, Endocrine Society clinical practice guidelines have recently proposed calculated free testosterone (FT) as screening test of hypogonadism in HIV infected men, but no clinical study has been published using this approach in HIV population to date. Our aim was to study prevalence and risk factors for hypogonadism in HIV-infected men using FT.</...

We have previously reported that treatment in vivo with estrogenic compounds or vitamin D metabolites increased the specific activity of creatine kinase specific activity (CK) in different organs both in intact and in ovariectomized female rats. In the present study we assessed the hormonal responsiveness of para-uterine fat from female and epididymal fat from male rats. Injection of immature female rats with 5 μg estradiol-17β (E2), 50 μg of e...

Androgen insensitivity leads to a defect of virilization in karyotypic males despite supraphysiologic androgen levels. Because of an impaired regulatory mechanism of the gonadotropin-androgen axis, both LH and T in serum may be elevated, leading to a distinctively high value of the LH×T multiplication product, which has been termed as the androgen sensitivity index (ASI). The aim of our present study was to investigate a cohort of young males with light decrease in penile...

1-methyl-1-nitrosourea (MNU) is a well characterized carcinogen that induces adenocarcinomas in rat mammary gland with high specifity. This model has proven to be of resemblance to human breast cancer. Synthetic analogs of vitamin D3 and retinoids have shown some promise as chemopreventive agents against chemically induced mammary gland carcinogenesis in rodents.Female Sprague-Dawley rats were given 50 mg/kg MNU i.p. on 46th and 52nd day of ag...