Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, affecting both sexes. Awareness and prevention practices aiming to control cardiovascular risk in women remain inadequate. On the other hand, circulating amyloid β 1-40 (Aβ1-40) is a proatherogenic peptide, closely linked with the process of aging. We aimed to evaluate the possible association between the progression of atherosclerosis in postmenopausal women and the role of Aβ1-40 ...

Background: A large body of evidence is supporting that the incidence of adverse cardiovascular events is increasing signfiicantly after the menopausal transition. Primary prevention practices continue to propose evolving algorithms, in an attempt to accurately estimate the actual female cardiovascular risk at midlife. Irrespectively of these attempts, considerable unrecognized cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk remains unexplained, beyond traditional risk factors (TRFs). On th...

Introduction: The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between a personal history of lactation and indices of subclinical atherosclerosis and arterial stiffness in postmenopausal women.Patients and methods: This cross-sectional study included 283 postmenopausal women. Sonographically assessed indices of vascular function [pulse wave velocity (PWV)] and vascular structure [intima-media thickness (IMT), atherosclerotic plaque presence] were te...

IntroductionMenopausal transition has been associated with an increase in cardiovascular risk, which is possibly linked with the hormonal imbalance following ovarian senescence. Both insulin levels and circulating androgens (FAI) have been associated with endothelial dysfunction, through studies evaluating flow mediated dilation (FMD). We aimed to investigate whether the link between these hormones and FMD might be explained by markers of oxidative stres...

Background: Heat shock protein 60 (HSP60), a potentially homeostatic antigen, has been shown to be involved in physiological and non-physiological conditions. Experimental data is supporting the role of HSP60 in placental and mitochondrial steroidogenesis. Under stress conditions, HSP60 are translocated into the endothelial-cell plasma membrane and the extracellular space, promoting the atherosclerotic process. Aim: We decided to investigate the associat...

Objective: Prolactin has been adversely associated with arterial function in postmenopausal women but its vascular effects in reproductive women are unknown. Furthermore, although both circulating prolactin levels and markers of vascular function follow menstrual cycle (MC) phases, their possible inter-correlation has not been explored.Methods: Sixty healthy premenopausal women were evaluated in two distinct phases of their MC (follicular, F and luteal p...

Background: Recent data is indicating that levels of circulating amyloid β 1-40 (αβ1-40), a proatherogenic aging peptide, may be considered as a novel biomarker in cardiovascular disease (CVD). Postmenopausal women represent a population with substantial unrecognized CVD-risk, which would benefit from identification of novel cardiovascular risk markers.Aim: To explore the role of plasma Aβ1-40 and its patterns of change over time in a...