Endocrine Abstracts

Although development is a highly organised and tightly regulated process, the developing embryo is sensitive to environmental influences, resulting in pathophysiological changes which may increase the risk of later cardio-metabolic, neurobehavioural and reproductive disorders. We have shown that prenatal overexposure to the synthetic glucocorticoid dexamethasone (Dex) in rats reduces birthweight in the first generation (F1) and leads to hypertension and insulin resistance in t...

Introduction: Symptoms of hypothyroidism in childhood include tiredness, poor growth, weight gain, dry skin and constipation. Whilst muscular manifestations including myalgia, muscle weakness, aches and cramps, stiffness and delayed tendon jerk relaxation are common, rhabdomyolysis has also rarely been reported.Case presentation: An 11-year-old female presented to her GP with a history of tiredness and poor growth. Initial blood tests performed by the GP...

Obesity in pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of complications for mother and child. Epigenetic modifications have been proposed as an important underlying mechanism. As the placenta plays a key role in fetal nutrition and metabolism we hypothesized there would be placental DNA methylation differences between lean and obese placenta. DNA methylation array (Human Methylation 450K) was performed on placentas from n=31 obese (BMI&...

Obesity in pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of complications for mother and child. Epigenetic modifications have been proposed as an important underlying mechanism. As the placenta plays a key role in fetal nutrition and metabolism we hypothesized there would be placental DNA methylation differences between lean and obese placenta. DNA methylation array (Human Methylation 450K) was performed on placentas from n=31 obese (BMI&...

Background: Maternal high fat diet (HFD) exposure is thought to perturb offspring metabolism, however the literature on experimental animal studies is inconsistent.Objectives: (i) In experimental studies, appraise data regarding metabolic parameters in offspring of mothers who consumed a HFD, (ii) assess possible predictors for these, and (iii) explore the quality of the evidence base.Methods: Searches were performed in four electr...

Obesity is associated with metabolic and vascular dysfunction. Many models have shown insulin resistance reduces endothelium-dependent vasodilation but this is also seen in obese subjects with normal glucose tolerance. There is also evidence of increased response to vascular injury in obese animals, although the mechanisms underpinning this are not fully understood. This study used a mouse model of diet-induced obesity (DIO) to address the hypothesis that obesity causes metabo...

Although obesity affects men and women, the risks of associated metabolic disturbances (e.g. type 2 diabetes) differ between the sexes. Altered peripheral glucocorticoid metabolism may underpin the metabolic consequences of obesity; however, most research exploring this has focused on male animals. This study used a mouse model to investigate the hypothesis that alterations in glucocorticoid metabolism caused by diet-induced obesity (DIO) will be more profound in males than in...

Background: Metformin is widely used for treatment of gestational diabetes mellitus. Metformin is considered safe in pregnancy but crosses the placenta. The limited available data of follow-up of children exposed to metformin in utero suggests potential for increased adiposity but mechanisms are unknown. As placental DNA methylation has been linked to later obesity and metformin causes global DNA methylation changes in cancer cell lines we hypothesised that this may be a candi...

Introduction: In rodents, dietary choline deficiency (CDD) results in macrovesicular hepatic steatosis and insulin sensitisation whereas methionine and choline deficient (MCDD) diets result in inflammatory fibrotic steatohepatitis with hepatic insulin resistance. The methyl donors choline and methionine are essential components of one-carbon metabolism. Our hypothesis was that methyl donor deficiency in mice would affect the expression of key genes in pathways of hepatic lipid...

Background: Maternal obesity during pregnancy is associated with adverse effects on fetal growth and development. As the placenta is a key organ regulating fetal growth, we hypothesized that maternal obesity is associated with altered placental expression and DNA methylation of genes regulating fetal growth and glucocorticoid metabolism and aimed to investigate this in first trimester (F; <12 weeks gestation) and term (T;>37 weeks gestation) placental tissues.<p cl...