Endocrine Abstracts

Reactive hypoglycaemia is usually mild, often presents with non-specific symptoms and may be difficult to distinguish from neuropsychiatric illnessThe diagnosis should be considered when these symptoms are related to eating. We present a severe case of idiopathic hypoglycaemia which responded dramatically to the alpha-glucosidase inhibitor acarbose.A 25 year old woman presented with a nine year history of intermittent thirst, feeling hot, distal paraesth...

Subcutaneous heparin is commonly used for prophylaxis of deep vein thrombosis. Heparin induced hypoaldosteronism can lead to hyperkalemia and natriuresis. These side effects are more common in elderly, renal insufficient and diabetic patients. We present a case with heparin induced hyperkalemia in a patient with diabetes.An 85 year old lady with insulin dependent diabetes mellitus of 32 years duration with peripheral neuropathy was admitted under the vas...

Primary hyperaldosteronism ('Conn's syndrome') may have a prevalence as high as 10% in hypertensive patients, and in some cases there may not be obvious hypokalaemia. Recently the use of a single aldosterone/ renin ('A/R') ratio has been advocated as a screening test for Conn's, and less influence by anti-hypertensive drug therapy has been claimed.We have established a cut-off for ambulant A/R ratios of 25 ng/mU using the DPC'Coat-a-Count' aldosterone method and the Nichols 'A...