Endocrine Abstracts

The effects of N-terminal parathyroid hormone (PTH) and parathyroid hormone related peptides (PTHrP) on the spontaneous contractility of 4 days pregnant mouse uterus in vitro were investigated. The myometrial tissue contracted vigorously for several hours, when incubated in organ baths in De Jalon's solution. PTH(1-34) and PTHrP(1-40) caused similar dose related inhibitions of contractions over a dose range of 10-9 to 10-7 M. C terminal PTHrP(107-139) was devoid of this...

Folliculostellate (FS) cells form a three-dimensional network within the anterior pituitary gland and play a key role in regulating the endocrine response to inflammation and anoxic stress. Adenosine, released under such conditions in high concentration, modulates a number of inflammatory processes and can regulate the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The identities of the adenosine receptor (AR) subtypes mediating these responses, however, and the si...

Therapeutic options for patients with severe obesity are limited. Low energy meal replacement regimes can induce significant short-term weight loss and improvements in metabolic variables. We sought to estimate the effect size on adiposity and cardiovascular risk factors of a relatively inexpensive 24-week regime based on meal replacement with semi-skimmed milk in severely obese adults. A retrospective cohort analysis showed that of 206 patients in our hospital-based bariatric...