Endocrine Abstracts

Objectives: Graves’ disease (GD) is a common cause of hyperthyroidism. An increased heart rate (HR) is a hallmark of elevated thyroid hormones (TH). In a prospective observational study we monitored HR continuously with wearable fitness trackers to evaluate the correlation between HR and TH levels and the relevance of HR monitoring for clinical management of patients with GD.Methods: Seventeen outpatients with newly diagnosed or relapsed GD starting...

Background: Thyroid hormones have been shown to be necessary for proper function of brown adipose tissue (BAT) and cold induced thermogenesis (CIT) in rodent models. In humans hyperthyroidism has been demonstrated to activate BAT and increase thermogenesis. However, the data on CIT in humans in the hypothyroid vs. the euthyroid state are limited and conflicting.Methods: This was a prospective observational study. We recruited 40 patients presenting to a ...

Introduction: Fibroblast growth factor-21 (FGF-21) is a recently discovered hormone acting as a central regulator of metabolism via adaptation of glucose homeostasis, insulin sensitivity, and ketogenesis. While acute systemic inflammatory conditions come along with profound alterations of metabolism, the role of FGF-21 in these acute phase responses is still unknown.Methods: This is a secondary analysis of two randomized, controlled trials in patients pr...

Background: Fibroblast growth factor-21 (FGF21), which has recently been identified as a central regulator of metabolism, is known to be increased in conditions of obesity, insulin resistance, and fatty liver. Likewise, there is evidence that FGF21 increases with systemic inflammation. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether chronic low-grade inflammation might be the underlying mechanism and whether an anti-inflammatory treatment decreases FGF21 levels in metabolic diso...

The melanocortin system is significant for energy homeostasis and receptors have distinct tissue specific expression. The melanocortin 2-receptor (Mc2r) transmits ACTH dependent signalling in the adrenal cortex. Increased expression in adipocytes during differentiation indicates relevance for lipid homeostasis. Mc2r activation in adipocytes results in increased lipolysis, however, implication compared to norepinephrine (NE) stimulated lipolysis is unknown. To further define fu...

Background: Humans and other mammals need to maintain a stable core body temperature. Energy expenditure increases in response to a mild cold stimulus, this is called cold induced thermogenesis (CIT). Recently, thermogenic brown adipose tissue (BAT) has been found to play an important role for CIT in human adults. It is known that energy expenditure and CIT are acutely influenced by ambient temperature. In the present study, we investigated the effect of seasonal temperature v...

Background: Imaging of brown adipose tissue (BAT) is currently performed with combined positron emission tomography and x-ray computed tomography (PET-CT). Recent studies showed promising imaging features of BAT with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) through modified 2-point-dixon (mDixon) water-fat separation method. The aim of this study was to establish a reliable MRI-procedure for quantification of BAT volumes and weighted fat-fraction (WFF) and to correlate them to cold-in...

Objectives: Graves’ disease (GD) is characterized by variable disease severity at diagnosis and variable disease activity during follow-up. Antithyroid drugs (ATD) such as carbimazole (CMZ), methimazole or propylthiouracil are the first-line treatment. Current guidelines recommend a range of ATD starting dose according to GD severity, followed by dose titration until euthyroidism is reached and a maintenance dose for a specific patient is established. As thyroid hormones ...