Endocrine Abstracts

Menopausal status is associated with weight gain, increased central fat mass, abnormal lipid metabolism, insulin resistance, and susceptibility to metabolic syndrome (MetS). Leptin is synthesized and secreted by adipocytes. Serum leptin levels are highly correlated with fat mass. We determined the association between MetS and serum leptin levels in 153 postmenopausal women. The difference in serum leptin level between MetS and non-MetS groups showed a statistical significance ...

Background: Community based surveys have revealed that approximately 20% of patients taking thyroxine have low serum TSH concentrations. Likewise, a high proportion of patients (27%) have been found to have high TSH concentrations. Suboptimal thyroxine treatment, in particular overtreatment, is associated with significant potential health risks including atrial fibrillation and osteoporosis. In Sheffield, thyroxine treated patients are routinely enrolled on a computerised thyr...

Antithyroid drug (ATD) resistant thyrotoxicosis raises difficult management issues. We describe three recent cases of apparent refractory thyrotoxicosis.Case 1: A 31 year old woman presented in July 2003 with thyrotoxicosis. Despite treatment with carbimazole (CBZ) 20 milligrams tds, serum free thyroxine (FT4) concentrations remained around 60 picomoles per litre (11-20). In October, CBZ dose was increased to 40 milligrams bd and dexamethasone 2 milligra...

A 44 year old woman presented in November 2000 with a two week history of headaches, vomiting and blurred vision. Past history consisted of type 2 diabetes and migraine. Initial investigation revealed hyponatraemia (sodium 114 mmol/l) and deranged liver biochemistry. ANA, anti dsDNA, cANCA, pANCA, anti Ro, La, RNP, Scl-70, Jo-1, smooth muscle and mitochondrial antibodies were negative. MRI revealed a 13x18x15mm pituitary mass elevating the optic chaism, without evidence of rec...

A 44 year old woman presented in November 2000 with a two week history of headaches, vomiting and blurred vision. Past history consisted of type 2 diabetes and migraine. Initial investigation revealed hyponatraemia (sodium 114 mmol/l) and deranged liver biochemistry. ANA, anti dsDNA, cANCA, pANCA, anti Ro, La, RNP, Scl-70, Jo-1, smooth muscle and mitochondrial antibodies were negative. MRI revealed a 13x18x15mm pituitary mass elevating the optic chaism, without evidence of rec...

Advances in the treatment of acromegaly mean biochemical 'cure ' should be possible in the vast majority of patients. The challenge of the future will be designing treatment algorithms to optimise outcomes for individual patients, to ensure not only life expectancy but also QOL is normalised. QOL data is lacking in acromegaly, as is a disease-specific tool for measuring QOL. ACROQOL is a disease-specific QOL questionnaire compromising 22 questions (scored 1-5, high score good)...

Backgroud: The association with daily calcium intake and sarcopenia has not been well established.Objective: The objective was to assess the associate of daily calcium intake and sarcopenia.Methods: We analysed the fourth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) in old adult (over 50 years), conducted in 2009. A total of 1964 non-obese (body mass index (BMI) <25 kg/m2) old adults (871 men and ...

Objective - Sarcopenic phenotype is associated with the increased risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. We investigated the proportion of sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity (SO) and their clinical characteristics in patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes.Research design and methods - We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of 133 (75 men, 58 women) patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes. All patients underwent a 75 g oral glucose t...

This work focuses on the characterization of circulating tumor cells(CTCs) captured from the blood of cancer patients using a microfluidic chip functionalized with an antibody against the epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EPCAM). We visualize CTCs captured from the blood of prostate cancer patients taking advantage of the unique tumor-associated marker, prostate specific antigen (PSA). Our data demonstrate that CTCs are detectable preoperatively in patients with early stage, ...

Myostatin is expressed predominantly in skeletal muscle and at significantly lower levels in adipose tissue. The loss of myostatin by gene disruption prevents an age-related increase in adipose tissue mass and partially attenuates the obese and diabetic phenotypes. Inhibition of myostatin signaling could be useful to prevent and/or treat obesity and diabetes. Male OLETF and LETO rats as non-diabetic controls were treated with or without ALA (100 mg/kg per day) and/or insulin (...