Endocrine Abstracts

Unwanted late effects of cranial irradiation frequently include endocrine and psychosocial impairment, which may be overlooked in routine follow-up. The aim of the present study was to obtain systematic data on the long-term, psychosocial impairments of patients treated with cranial irradiation as compared to a non-irradiated control group. Both groups were fully hormone replaced including growth hormone (GH) substitution.A compilation of questionnaires ...

Introduction: Phaeochromocytoma is a rare neuroendocrine tumour, with serious and potentially lethal cardiovascular complications. Cerebral haemorrhage is an unusual complication of phaeochromocytoma with <40 cases reported worldwide.Case: We report the case of a 29-year-old woman who presented with sudden onset of headache and collapse. CT Brain showed right sided frontal haemorrhage, her BP > 200/100, LVH on ECG and Echocardiography suggesting ...

Diet induced obesity is associated with an increased relative risk of developing type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia and cardiovascular complications. In addition to these co-morbidity factors there is increasing evidence to suggest that obese insulin resistant individuals show impaired negative feedback control of the HPA axis in response to stress. Here we investigate HPA axis response to an acute stress following high fat feeding in rats.Male ...

Peptide YY (PYY) is a satiety hormone that communicates nutritional status to the central nervous system. PYY is released postprandially from endocrine L-cells in proportion to calories consumed. It is processed to generate the principle bioactive form PYY3–36, which acts on Y2 receptors in feeding centres within the brainstem and hypothalamus to reduce appetite. Chronic intravenous infusion of PYY3–36 induces weight loss in rodents, and obese humans display low plas...

Meningitis is associated with high mortality and morbidity predominantly driven by meningeal inflammation. Herpes Simplex virus (HSV) is a major cause of viral meningitis typically progressing to HSV encephalitis. Numerous studies highlight the importance of glucocorticoids in lowering inflammation in bacterial meningitis, but very limited data exists on the use of glucocorticoids in viral meningitis. We aimed to characterise 11β-HSD1 (which interconverts inactive cortiso...

Alarin is the most recently discovered member of the galanin peptide family, and is encoded by a splice variant of galanin-like peptide (GALP) mRNA. Galanin and GALP are known to regulate energy homeostasis and reproduction. Galanin is thought to mediate its effects via the three-galanin receptors. GALP also binds to these known galanin receptors, but evidence suggests that it may also act via an as yet unknown GALP specific receptor. The role of alarin in energy homeostasis a...

5alpha-Reductase1 (5aR1) catalyses glucocorticoid metabolism, potentially modulating glucocorticoid clearance and therefore affecting the activity of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis. 5aR1 is up regulated in obesity associated with activation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis. Here we investigated if inhibition of 5aR1 impairs glucocorticoid clearance and suppresses the HPA axis.Age-matched male and female ...