Endocrine Abstracts

Capillary blood glucose testing by patients with diabetes can be useful in the management of diabetes. Whilst the meters now available are small, fast and reliable finger-pricking remains painful and cumbersome. Most patients would prefer not to do this.There has thus been great interest in the development of alternative methods of measuring glucose employing invasive, minimally-invasive and non-invasive sensing technology. Currently three devices are av...

Within the United Kingdom continuous insulin infusion pumps have not been widely used. This is due to concerns over safety with the early models and fundamentally a lack of funding. With NICE guidance now recommending use in some patients there is likely to be increased demand for the provision of these instruments. The devices have considerably improved and offer an alternative to multiple dosing regimes in some patients.Whilst home glucose testing can ...

Background: It has been proposed that in the acute, untreated phase of thyrotoxicosis analysis of the peripheral eosinophil to monocyte ratio is a useful parameter to help differentiate thyroiditis from other forms of thyrotoxicosis without the need for radioiodine uptake scanning. (1).Methodology: We performed a retrospective search of our thyroid database for patients who had had a full blood count and radioiodine uptake scan prior to the commencement of antithyroid medi...

The ACE I/D polymorphism is associated with resting ACE activity such that DD>ID>II. The D allele is strongly associated with increased exercise-induced left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and cardiovascular risk.Objective: Examine the relation between ACE genotype, exercise, circulating ACE and angiotensin II.Ethical approval was obtained and 17 (9DD, 8II) healthy, male (22.9+/-1.9 years, 178.6+/-2.8cm, 71.9+/-2.2kg) Caucasi...

Background: The ACE I/D polymorphism of the ACE gene, associated with cardiovascular risk and athletic performance, accounts for half the variation in resting ACE. DD subjects have the greatest, ID intermediate, and II subjects the lowest serum ACE. Exercise stimulates the renin-angiotensin system, producing a rise in angiotensin II. 3 small (n=6-8) lab studies suggest serum ACE does not change with exercise, despite a rise in angiotensin II, whereas 2 other studies have demon...