Endocrine Abstracts

Most Europeans take drinking milk for granted; it’s the everyday consumption of an everyday drink. But for most adult humans, indeed, for most adult mammals, milk is very far from an everyday drink. Milk is something that we have specifically evolved to be able to consume in the relatively recent past. The ability to digest the sugar in milk is called Lactase Persistence and Darwin’s engine of evolutionary change, natural selection, has probably worked harder on this...

At high latitudes over-wintering personnel are deprived of natural sunlight in winter: light of sufficient intensity and suitable spectral composition is the main factor which maintains a 24 h period in human circadian rhythms. Numerous reports of sleep problems from Polar regions prompted investigations of the underlying mechanisms. At Halley (British Antarctic Survey Base, 750S) the sun does not rise for 3 months in winter and a delay of the melatonin rhythm is observed. Thi...

As days become shorter susceptible people typically develop a cluster of symptoms associated with seasonal affective disorder (SAD): decreased energy levels, difficulty waking up, increased sleeping, weight gain, social withdrawal, difficulty concentrating and depressed mood. These symptoms usually remit in the spring with the increase in photoperiod. There is also evidence for seasonality (i.e. less severe changes in mood than observed in SAD) in the general population. SAD i...

Rickets is a disease in which there is failure of mineralisation the growth plate and osteoid matrix. It is a disorder of the growing child which manifests during infancy (<18 months of age) and during the adolescent growth spurt. In the UK nutritional rickets is caused by vitamin D deficiency, although dietary calcium deficiency might exacerbate the disease. In humans the main source of vitamin D is by the conversion of 7-dehydrocholesterol in the skin to cholecalceferol ...