Endocrine Abstracts

Bjorntorp first coined the term ‘metabolic syndrome’ (MS) in the 1980’s to describe the association between obesity, regional fat distribution, disease endpoints and their risk factors (cardiovascular disease, premature death, stroke, non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and female carcinomas). This description also recognised the potential contribution from adreno-cortical activity and stress. Since that time a plethora of research has highlighted the causat...

Preventing obesity is an increasing focus for public health and social policy, but effective treatment for those who are already obese and those who will inevitably fail even the best preventative programmes is needed. The banality that both energy intake and expenditure can be modified by voluntary behaviour changes belies the observation that obese people have at not at losing weight but at maintaining weight loss. The objectives of obesity management to improve health statu...

It is now accepted that the medical consequences of obesity require and justify effective medical strategies to be used alongside attempts at lifestyle modification. Evaluation of , and true clinical outcomes require trials of many years duration.At present drug treatment is limited. Two drugs have been approved by NICE after systematic reviews. Orlistat inhibits gastric and pancreatic lipases to produce 30% fat malabsorption. A number of trials for up t...

Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of acanthosis nigricans (AN) in a cohort of obese subjects and to assess the validity of AN as an indicator of insulin resistanceMethods: 88 healthy obese subjects were assessed clinically for severity of AN scored according to Burke's Scale1. Neck and axilla severity scores (NASS) were discriminative, easy to access in a clinical setting and hence used in the analysis. Insulin resistance was assessed by Homeostasi...

Large databases facilitate the examination of those factors, which may determine response to treatment, potentially to develop prediction models. We have used KIMS (Pfizer's international metabolic database of GH-treated adults), to examine parameters that might predict clinical response to GH therapy in hypopituitary adults.Patients/methods: Patients with non-functioning pituitary adenoma on GH titrated to maintain serum IGF-I between minus 2 and 2 SDS,...