Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Turner syndrome (TS) is a rare genetic developmental disorder characterized by gonadal dysfunction, short stature and heart defects, among others. Women with TS often suffer from severe fatigue, for which they are typically referred to endocrinologists. The diagnostic work-up is generally time-consuming and invasive, but it rarely solves the problem. To prevent the personal and financial burden of unnecessary diagnostic procedures, it is crucial to understand fatig...

: Hypothalamic regulation of pituitary adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) secretion switches to dopamine (DA) with a parallel loss of DAerg control of alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (α-MSH) release in lactating dams. It has been also shown that dephosphorylation/inactivation of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) in terminals of DA neurons at the median eminence is required not only for suckling-induced PRL release but also for ACTH responses. The aim of the present study was...

Exposure to maternal obesity or overfeeding during early development has lasting effects upon the young adult rat. Maternal cafeteria (CD) feeding during lactation programmes behaviour in the adult offspring, reducing anxiety in males and altering the behavioural satiety sequence in females. The aim of the present study was to examine the impact of early exposure to maternal over-nutrition upon bioactive amines in the brain. Lactating Wistar rats were fed either a control chow...

Case history: A 20-year-old male presented with a one-year history of reduced libido, headache and slowly progressive blindness. His symptoms (particularly the visual deterioration) had a great impact on his daily life, leading to dismissal from work. Examination showed decreased visual acuity (12/6 bilaterally), reduced colour vision and a dense bitemporal visual field loss. Testes measured 15 mls bilaterally. He had no clinical stigmata of acromegaly, nor Cushing’s dise...

Introduction: ACTH is measured to confirm impairments in the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis. Patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) can have ectopic adrenocorticotropic secretion. In December 2009, a SCLC patient showed an enormous discrepancy between the ACTH results obtained with two different ACTH assays. The aim of this study was to compare different ACTH assays in SCLC patients.Methods: In a pilot study EDTA plasma samples of nin...

A 41-year-old woman presented with a puffy face since five months. She experienced alopecia, hirsutism, easy bruisability, amenorrhea and proximal muscle weakness. Clinical examination revealed a moonface, centripetal obesity, proximal muscle atrophy, thinned scalp hair, hyperpigmentation in sun-exposed neck region, ecchymosis and arterial hypertension grade 1. Blood analysis showed elevated morning cortisol, elevated morning ACTH of 66.1 pg/ml (normal 10–60), hypokalemic...

A 41-year-old woman presented with a puffy face since five months. She experienced alopecia, hirsutism, easy bruisability, amenorrhea and proximal muscle weakness. Clinical examination revealed a moonface, centripetal obesity, proximal muscle atrophy, thinned scalp hair, hyperpigmentation in sun-exposed neck region, ecchymosis and arterial hypertension grade 1. Blood analysis showed elevated morning cortisol, elevated morning ACTH of 66.1 pg/ml (normal 10–60), hypokalemic...

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned blood doping in 1988 after the discovery that cyclists were transfusing homologous blood at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984. Recombinant erythropoietin (EPO) was developed for the treatment of anaemia following the cloning of the human EPO gene in 1984. Unfortunately, sports competitors could then misuse EPO to increase circulating haemoglobin and its oxygen carrying capacity in order to gain an advantage in endurance even...

Muslims with diabetes are confronted with a dilemma during the annually fasting period: the Ramadan. The Islam foresees a delay of fasting for sick people, but Muslim patients with diabetes do not feel themselves as sick people. How they cope with it?Muslim diabetes patients are contacted in the outpatient department of three hospitals in Antwerp. Well educated students in diet education with a Muslim tradition, question the patients about their food con...

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...