Endocrine Abstracts

The 19th century saw the emergence of an extraordinarily gifted group of Dublin doctors who enjoy eponymous recognition. Immediately on graduating Robert Graves’ travelled for over 2 years to many of the foremost medical centres in Europe. On his return he introduced formal bedside teaching and daily lectures which has become the model for clinical training in these islands. Graves’ main other interest was the treatment of febrile illness recognizing the importance o...

The 19th century saw the emergence of an extraordinarily gifted group of Dublin doctors who enjoy eponymous recognition. Immediately on graduating Robert Graves’ travelled for over 2 years to many of the foremost medical centres in Europe. On his return he introduced formal bedside teaching and daily lectures which has become the model for clinical training in these islands. Graves’ main other interest was the treatment of febrile illness recognizing the importance o...

Couples in developed countries are increasingly delaying child bearing to later in life. While it is well known that female reproductive functions decrease and genetic risks for the offspring increase beyond the age of 35 and seize completely around the age of 50, the influence of risks of paternal age on fertility and offspring are less well known. Indeed, until recently life long fertility was assumed for the male. However, testicular function slowly declines with age and fe...

Background: Hypovitaminosis D is associated with T2DM risk, cross-sectionally and prospectively; supplementation can reduce insulin resistance and increase glucose-induced insulin secretion in humans. Increased pancreatic islet RAS activity is induced by hyperglycemia, enhancing β cell damage (Leung PS et al.). Vitamin D is now known to suppress renin secretion, thus we have examined effects of calcitriol on increased islet RAS activity in vitro±hyp...

Some 40 years ago, diabetes was re-classified from a single disorder into autoimmune (T1D) and metabolic (T2D) on the interpretation of observation rather than the outcome of experiment. The 20 or so experiments carried out since to test the autoimmune hypothesis (largely randomised trials of immunotherapy) have proved disappointing, and none has translated into patient benefit. There is arguably reason to question the autoimmunity paradigm. The accelerator hypothesis argues t...

Hypoglycaemia – especially in elderly hospital in-patients – is far less uncommon in non-diabetic patients than was previously thought but is only very rarely due to accidental or malicious ‘insulin’ (including insulin analogues and sulphonylurea) administration. The question of when to suspect that this might be the case and how to confirm or refute it is one that crops up from time to time in every community. Sometimes it is relatively simple and easy to ...