Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Acylcarnitines and sphingomyelins are key players of lipid metabolism at cytosolic, vesicular and cell membrane level. Their metabolism was found deranged in diseases of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. Little information is available about levels of these compounds in the bloodstream and their circadian fluctuations. Dried blood spots (DBS) allow multiple autonomous and painless collections per day. However, poor biological validation data are available ab...

Introduction: Lipidomics is an emerging approach to characterize circadian rhythm alterations due to diseases of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. Glycerophospholipids are membrane structural constituents and key players in cell signalling, homeostasis and inflammatory and immune responses. Among blood derivatives, serum may reflect the soluble fraction, whereas dried blood spot (DBS) may reflect the cell membrane fraction of these lipids. However, little information is...

Introduction: Recent studies demonstrated that circulating concentration of many metabolites fluctuates with circadian rhythmicity. However, detailed information on amino acid and biogenic amine daily variations is still lacking. Dried blood spot (DBS) sampling appears to be a convenient tool for studies requiring multiple daily sampling.Aim: To verify the validity of DBS as a suitable device, we compared serum and DBS levels and changes along the day of...

Background: Adrenal insufficiency patient (AIP) care is mostly based on symptoms or clinical signs of inadequate glucocorticoid replacement treatment (GRT). Salivary cortisol (F) and cortisone (E) recently emerged as new tools for AIP management, although poorly employed in clinical practice.Aim: To assess associations between salivary glucocorticoid measures and life quality, anxiety depressive symptoms, sleep quality in AIP.Metho...

Background: Chronic hypercortisolism exhibits irregular circadian rhythm and deranged protein metabolism. Altered amino acid(AA) and biogenic amine(BA) circulating levels were found in patients with hypercortisolism. However, there is limited information about the physiologic circadian fluctuation of AA and BA levels, and it is not known whether this is affected by states of hypercortisolism.Aim: To characterize levels and daily fluctuations of AA and BA...

Background: PCOS is characterised by increased production of ovarian and adrenal androgens. Obesity is closely connected to excess androgens and to the disruption of hormone circadian rhythmicity. To date, it is not clear whether hyperandrogenism in PCOS, complicated or not by obesity, is associated with androgen rhythm dysregulation.Aim: To investigate androgen diurnal rhythmicity and overall daily androgen exposure by measuring testosterone(T), androst...

Background: Adrenal incidentalomas (AI) are classified into mild autonomous cortisol-secreting (MACS) and non-secreting (NS) based on the 1mg-dexamethasone suppression test (DST). However, the latter test fails to detect alterations in the cortisol rhythm, which might be present in both MACS and NS.Aim: To characterize the cortisol secretion in terms of daily rhythm and exposure in healthy controls (HC) and patients with AI.Methods...

Background: Chronic hypercortisolism is known to alter the circadian rhythm and to impair protein metabolism. Altered amino acid (AA) and biogenic amine (BA) levels were found in basal blood in patients with hypercortisolism. However, poor information is available on the physiologic circadian fluctuation of these molecules. Furthermore, the potential derangement caused by hypercortisolism was never investigated.Aim: To characterize diurnal levels and flu...