Endocrine Abstracts

Hypothyroidism has been defined as those conditions which result in suboptimal circulating levels of thyroid hormones. The problem is how to define such suboptimal levels? In the 1970s, the advent of routine assays for TSH together with the concept that the most sensitive ‘peripheral tissue’ to diminished circulating thyroid hormone concentrations is the pituitary led to the acceptance that elevated serum TSH was required to define primary hypothyroidism. There are p...

Background: Testosterone deficiency is common in obesity and in type 2 diabetes mellitus. It is hypothesised that the expanded adipose pool, which is the major source of aromatase in men, depletes testosterone levels by excess conversion to estradiol. Individuals with either the GG rs2470152 polymorphism in intron 1 or a high number of TTTA repeats in intron 4 of CYP19 are known to have greater aromatase activity with demonstrable effects upon plasma estradiol and osteoporosis...