Endocrine Abstracts

It has previously been established that the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus receives appetite input signals from both the brain stem and the peripheral circulation. Two neuronal types control food intake, an inhibitory neurone secreting alpha MSH and CART and a stimulatory neurone secreting NPY and AGRP. It was established that leptin activated the inhibitory neurone and inhibited the appetite stimulating neurone. The intestinal hormone, PYY, released after food ingestion acted i...

Malthus said human population was limited by starvation. We are the survivors of previous rounds of starvation. Obesity is a survival characteristic! Unsurprisingly, now food is plentiful we are dying of obesity, and ways of controlling appetite are needed. It is thus essential to understand how the brain controls energy expenditure and appetite. The hypothalamus is the key centre regulating energy balance. It integrates several inputs. Higher centres give psychological inform...

Steve Bloom, Division of Investigative Science, Imperial College, London, UK AbstractProfessor Bloom is currently Chairman and Chief of Service for the Directorate of Pathology, Therapy Services and Endocrinology for Hammersmith Hospitals Trust (Chelsea Westminster Hospital, Charing Cross Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital), and Head of Division of Investigative Science, Imperial College School of Medicine....

The key centre regulating energy balance is the hypothalamus. It receives several inputs. First there is the input from the CNS. Higher centres (psychological input) give information about food palatability, likely environmental dangers during feeding etc. There is also information of a more basic kind (sleep/wake cycles, pain, metabolic disturbance etc). Secondly there is somatic afferent input, for example from the vagus, which is mainly processed and relayed through the bra...

Galanin-like peptide (GALP) is a novel peptide isolated from the porcine hypothalamus. Within the hypothalamus GALP mRNA is confined to the arcuate nucleus from which GALP immunoreactive fibres project to the medial preoptic area. Previous studies indicate that GALP may be regulated by leptin. Intracerebroventricular administration of GALP has been shown to stimulate luteinising hormone release. Low circulating levels of leptin lead to the down regulation of the hypothalamic-p...

The activity of certain hypothalamic neuronal populations is altered by changes in glucose. in-vitro studies have identified several glucose-sensitive neuronal populations in hypothalamic regions controlling energy homeostasis. Subsets of orexigenic arcuate nucleus Neuropeptide Y (NPY)-releasing neurones are known to be glucose responsive. These neurones may allow glucose to influence appetite. Cocaine and amphetamine regulated transcript (CART) is a neurotransmitter ab...

Peptide YY(3-36) (PYY(3-36)) is secreted from endocrine L-cells of the gastrointestinal tract and is thought to induce post-prandial satiety by inhibiting the release of neuropeptide Y (NPY) in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus via the hypothalamic neuropeptide Y2 receptor (Y2R). NPY mRNA expression in the hypothalamus is markedly increased with fasting. Therefore, we investigated the effect of intraperitoneal (i.p.) injections of PYY(3-36) (120ug/kg) on food intake vers...

Background: PYY is a gut hormone that physiologically inhibits appetite. Currently only radioimmunoassay (RIA) techniques are available for its estimation. The aim of the study was to evaluate our in-house assay for precision, detection limit, interference of haemolysis, suitability of serum versus plasma and biological variation within one subject.Method: All samples were obtained from one subject on two occasions following an over night fast and the co...

Cocaine and amphetamine regulated transcript (CART) is a hypothalamic neuropeptide with a role in the hypothalamo-pituitary adrenal axis (HPA) in rodents. However, the role of pituitary CART is poorly understood. Previous work in rodents has shown pituitary CART is regulated by corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH) and glucocorticoids. CRH increased pituitary CART release fifteen-fold. Adrenalectomised rats had significantly higher pituitary CART mRNA expression, pituitary CA...

BACKGROUND: The reason for reduction in appetite following gastro intestinal bypass procedures in man and in animal models remains unclear. Rats following jejunum intestinal bypass eat significantly less compared to sham operated rats and this seem due to a transferable factor in plasma. Such a humoral factor may be a therapeutic option for obesity. PYY, produced from the distal small bowel and colon is elevated in man and rodents following small bowel resection and ilial bypa...