Endocrine Abstracts

We report a 38 years old male who was referred to the endocrine clinic with 3 months history lethargy, lack of libido and reduced shaving frequency. He was previously fit and well with no past medical history however he and his wife has been trying for pregnancy for 2 years. He didn’t smoke, has no history of opioids use and drink 10 units of alcohol a week. His investigation showed panhypopiturism with profound low serum testosterone of <0.5 nmol/l (8.33–30.19),...

Case: We present the case of a previously fit and well 53-year-old lady who presented with persistent hypokalaemia (1.9 mmol). She was cushingoid and testing confirmed Cushing’s syndrome with random cortisol of >1750 nmol/l, ACTH 838 ng/l and non-suppressed cortisol (1099 nmol/l) after low dose dexamethasone suppression test. MRI pituitary was normal. Abdominal CT scan showed bilateral adrenal hyperplasia and large (>10 cm) mass with necrotic centre replacing the ...

We present a case of Phaeochromocytoma co-secreting ACTH as a rare cause of Cushing’s syndrome. Our patient is a 49 year lady admitted acutely with sudden onset headache and severe hypertension. CT brain and CSF analysis were normal. Her urinary catecholamines were found to be elevated. Noradrenaline 709 and 972 nmol/ mmol of creatinine (ref range 0–48), Adrenaline 215 and 256 (ref range 0–10). CT abdomen revealed 4.2 cm left adrenal mass, MIBG scan confirmed ph...

Objective: The adipocytokine visfatin, expressed in abdominal adipose tissue (AT) is thought to mimic insulin activity. However, whilst central adiposity is closely related to insulin resistance (IR) and T2DM, visfatins’ role in the development of these conditions remains unclear.Method: We investigated circulating visfatin levels in non-diabetic (ND) and diabetic (T2DM) subjects and in T2DM patients pre- and post- rosiglitazone (RSG) treatment. We ...

Mitochondrial dysfunction has been implicated in the pathogenesis of obesity and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). Recent research has investigated the role of mitochondria in skeletal muscle and suggesting mitochondrial dysregulation may be linked to T2DM. To date few studies have focused on the role of human adipose tissue (AT) in energy homoeostasis. Therefore we investigated a number of mitochondrial genes including PPARγ co-activator1 (PGC1α, mitochondrial biogen...

Central obesity is strongly associated with sub-clinical inflammation, insulin resistance (IR) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), but the intracellular mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of central obesity remain unclear. Recent studies have implicated NFκB and c-jun N terminal kinase (JNK) as central molecules linking insulin action and inflammation in mice. As such we examined (1) the inflammatory intracellular signaling pathways involving NFκB, JNK as a pot...