Endocrine Abstracts

A 49 year old man presented with a 6 month history of new onset truncal ataxia and vertigo. Further enquiry revealed a 6 year history of erectile dysfunction, low energy levels, depression, significant weight loss and a 3 year history of sensorineuronal deafness confirmed by audiometry. His past medical history included ulcerative colitis requiring a colectomy 11 years previously. On clinical examination he was a thin and well tanned patient with relative hypotension (98<...

Background: Hypereosinophilic syndrome is a rare condition, which is connected with a variety of diseases. Very infrequently, it occurs in association with malignancy denoting widespread metastases and poor prognosis. We describe a patient with hypereosinophilia and hypercalcemia as a manifestation of disseminated cholangiocarcinoma.Case description: A 54-year-old man with a history of alcoholic hepatitis for the last 10 years was admitted due to severe ...

Traditional herbal medicine has been used for centuries to treat various chronic diseases – There have been some anecdotal evidence to suggest that the use of some of these herbal medicine may be both safe & efficacious in patients and laboratory animals with diabetes. Many patients with diabetes worldwide use some of these medicines without informing their caring physicians. PHS-E2 (Glucoherb) is a Chinese traditional herbal medicine, which is extracted from two medi...

Background: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and chronic hepatitis C (CHC) are systemic diseases with a broad spectrum of coexisting disorders, but their common features are insulin resistance and higher frequency of concomitant type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). According to recent studies, a higher frequency of CHC in patients with DM is not associated with this cohort exposure to multiple medical interventions, but with CHC being a possible risk factor for developing DM. CHC m...

Context: Autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 1 (APS1) is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by mutations in the autoimmune regulator gene. Hypoparathyroidism occurs in 80% of patients with APS1 and has been suggested to result from an autoimmune reaction against the calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) on parathyroid cells. Previously, we have detected CaSR-binding antibodies in patients with APS1 using immunoprecipitation and flow cytometry assays.Obj...

Background: The alpha2B adrenoceptor gene, a candidate gene for essential hypertension, harbours a functional insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism of three glutamate residues.Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate whether the presence of the D allele is associated with hypertension in Greek patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).Patients-methods: One hundred and twenty-nine hypertensive (64 male, mean age: 66....

Aim of the study: To examine the white blood cell count and the platelet count in type 2 diabetic patients vs. age-matched healthy controls, as well as to investigate if the abovementioned counts are associated with parameters of diabetes.Methods: This study included 337 subjects, divided into two groups. Group A comprised 190 type 2 diabetic patients (98 men, mean age 66.5±9.6 years, mean diabetes duration 11.7±8.6 years). Group B comprised 14...

Objective: To examine the ability of a multisensor armband (SenseWear Pro 2 Armband™, Body Media, Pittsburgh, PA) to estimate daily energy expenditure (EE).Patients and methods: Eighteen healthy women (mean age:29.4±5.8 yr and mean BMI:23.2) participated in the study. Daily EE was estimated by the Sensewear Armband and a physical activity record (PAL) during the same day. Appropriate MET factors were assigned to the different activity categorie...

P450 Oxidoreductase Deficiency (ORD) is a novel form of congenital adrenal hyperplasia with biochemical evidence of combined 21-hydroxylase and 17α-hydroxylase deficiency. Mutations in P450 oxidoreductase (POR), a crucial electron donor to microsomal P450 enzymes including CYP17 and CYP21, have recently been identified as the cause of disease. Clinical features in ORD include ambiguous genitalia, glucocorticoid deficiency and craniofacial malformations resembling the Antl...

Objective: To investigate the potential association between serum inflammatory cytokine levels and thyroxine replacement dose in patients with Hashimoto disease.Patients and methods: The study included 40 patients (12 men) with a mean age of 56.52±6.12 years who had hypothyroidism due to Hashimoto disease. Serum Interleukin-1b (IL-1b), Tumour Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and Interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels, as well as TSH, fT3 and fT<sub...