Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Adrenal insufficiency (AI) poses a significant health burden on patients, their families, and the healthcare system. Cost of illness for this patient population is four times higher than the general population. Hospital admissions due to adrenal crisis (AC) form a considerable proportion of this cost. Almost 1 in 200 patients die from AC. One in 12 patients with AI are hospitalised at least once a year following an acute AC episode if not treated promptly with pare...

Introduction: LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) is usualy estimated using the Friedewald equation. This equation assumes a fixed factor of 5 for the ratio of triglycerides to very LPL cholesterol (TG:VLDL-C); however, the actual TG:VLDL-C ratio varies significantly across the range of triglyceride and cholesterol levels. A new method was proposed by Martin, S and co-workers using NHANES data. We aimed to evaluate the concordance Friedewald formula with the new method for LDL-C estimatio...

Background: Adrenal Insufficiency (AI) is an inadequate production of cortisol hormone from the adrenal glands. The most common form is secondary AI (suppression of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis), with a prevalence of approximately 300 cases per million. Patients with AI require lifelong corticosteroid replacement, which poses a risk of a life-threatening adrenal crisis (AC) event. AC presents with low blood pressure, hypoglycaemia and even loss of consciousness. Thi...

The European Journal of Endocrinology Prize is awarded to a candidate who has contributed significantly to the advancement of the knowledge in the field of endocrinology through publication. Further information on the prize can be found at http://www.ese-hormones.org/prizes/eje.aspx. This year’s recipient is Prof. Martin Fassnacht. The prize will be presented as part of the ECE 2014 opening ceremony where ...

Breast cancer is the most common oncology-related cause of death in women worldwide. The use of progestins in combined hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has been implicated in increasing the risk of developing breast cancer in postmenopausal women. Since various progestins are available for clinical use, all differentiated by structure, it is possible that not all progestins would lead to increased breast cancer risk. Progestins are synthetic ligands of the progesterone recept...

Background: Bone marrow transplant (BMT) survivors are at increased risk of metabolic syndrome and developing type 2 diabetes (T2DM). Measurement of HbA1c is increasingly used in recent years for the diagnosis of T2DM. An HbA1c level of ≥6.5% (48 mmol/mol) is considered as a diagnostic cut-off for T2DM and an HbA1c between 6.0–6.4% (42–47 mmol/mol) is considered as at risk of T2DM. We aimed to look at the diagnostic performance of HbA1c and oral glucose toleran...

Introduction: Glucocorticoids may exert important actions in early pregnancy on the invading trophoblast. The local actions of glucocorticoids can be modulated by 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11β-HSD) enzymes which catalyse inter-conversion of cortisol with its inert metabolite, cortisone. Although two cloned 11β-HSD isoenzymes are known to be expressed in the term placenta, their expression and activity have not been well characterised in the first trimest...

11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11β-HSD1) is an NADPH-dependant oxo-reductase located in the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) lumen of skeletal muscle. It generates active glucocorticoids to regulate permissive and adaptive metabolism. Hexose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (H6PD) interacts with 11β-HSD1 to generate an appropriate NADPH/NADP+ ratio to support activity. H6PD depletion impairs SR NADPH generation triggering 11β-HSD1 to assume glucocorticoid ina...

11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11β-HSD1) is an NADPH-dependant oxo-reductase located in the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) lumen of skeletal muscle. It generates active glucocorticoids to regulate permissive and adaptive metabolism. Hexose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (H6PD) interacts with 11β-HSD1 to generate an appropriate NADPH/NADP+ ratio to support activity. H6PD depletion impairs SR NADPH generation triggering 11β-HSD1 to assume glucocorticoid ina...

Placental chorionic gonadotrophin (CG) hormone secretion, critical for maintenance of early pregnancy, is dependent on differentiation of specialised CG-secreting binucleate trophoblast (horse) and syncytiotrophoblast (human). The most abundant genes expressed by binucleate cells are the α and β subunits of equine CG. We recently showed the transcription factor glial cells missing 1 (GCM1) is rapidly induced during differentiation of binucleate trophoblast and mRNA e...