Endocrine Abstracts

Vitamin D is a large group of structurally similar substances (calciferols) with diverse biological functions. Although approximately 40 different vitamin D metabolites have been determined so far, only 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D was considered to be biologically active and the determination of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OH D) served a tool to assess vitamin D supply. Recently it was found that also C3-epimers of vitamin D have their biological effect, however these effects differ f...

Old people will have to take care of themselves as long as possible. The challenge for the future is therefore not to extend human age at all costs, but to extend human self-sufficiency. Two years ago, we showed that patients with anxiety and affective disorders (‘depression’) felt great after a month’s stay at the spa, improved in a number of endocrinologic parameters. In this work we try to explain the physiological changes of stay in a spa without pharmace...

A number of evidence indicate that mood (affective) disorders are influenced by various bioactive steroids such as corticoids, sex hormones and neuroactive steroids. However, to date, there are limited data concerning the discrimination between patients suffering from the disorders and controls, or regarding the classification of individual subtypes of mood disorders on the basis of steroid profiling. Therefore 47 steroids including their conjugates and further related substan...