Endocrine Abstracts

Clinically silent adrenal masses discovered by abdominal imaging procedures performed for non-adrenal disorders, i.e. adrenal incidentalomas, have become a common finding in clinical practice and they represent a clinical concern because of the risk not only of malignancy but also of subclinical hormonal hypersecretion (SCS) that represents a new risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and/or osteoporosis. We studied 73 patients (39F, 34M; mean±S.E.M.: 61.6...

Object: In Addison’s disease hydrocortisone or cortisone have so far been used at doses of 30–37.5 mg/day, respectively, though several studies showed that cortisol normal production is about 5.7 mg/m2 (20–25 mg/day of hydrocortisone or cortisone, respectively). Differently from secondary hypoadrenalism, scanty data exist in patients with Addison’s disease on role of conventional glucocorticoid replacement and metabolic and cardiovascular outcome...

HPA response to glucocorticoids (GCs) feedback is usually tested by dexamethasone (DEX), a synthetic GC; it poorly crosses BBB and preferentially activates pituitaric glucocorticoid receptor (GR), with a binding potency to GR 7 fold higher and an anti-inflammatory potency about 35 fold higher than cortisol. Cortisol, which easily penetrates into CNS, could better evaluate the GC feedback by acting also at supra-pituitary level. We studied the effects of 150 min infusion of hyd...

Central serotoninergic activity (CSA) is known to influence the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, and a CSA loss seems to play a role in human brain aging and in etiology of functional hypercortisolism and depression, whose incidence increase with advancing age. Citalopram (CT), a SSRI, has been considered a good tool to evaluate CSA in humans. Aim of this study was to evaluate the neuroendocrine response to CT in healthy adult subjects during lifespan. We e...

In primary adrenal insufficiency hydrocortisone or cortisone are commonly used at doses of 30–37.5 mg/day as replacement therapy, though recent studies showed that cortisol normal production is about 5.7 mg/m2, equivalent to 20 mg/day of hydrocortisone, suggesting that supraphysiological doses are used. In 19 Addison’s disease patients (8 M, 11 F, 23–71 yr) under conventional glucocorticoid replacement therapy (37.5 mg cortisone/day) with low DHEAS le...

Object: In Addison’s disease (AD), although glucocorticoid (GC) replacement is essential for health and, indeed, life, several studies showed that conventional GCs doses are involved in metabolic and cardiovascular alterations observed in this disease. As the effects of GCs are mediated by the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), encoded by NR3C1 gene, different polymorphisms in the NR3C1 gene have been linked to altered glucocorticoid sensitivity in general population as well a...

Background and aims: Alterations of mood and depression may be associated with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and impaired glucose metabolism in non-diabetic people. Central serotoninergic activity may modulate glucose tolerance via neuroendocrine effectors. The serotoninergic tone was assessed by measuring the hormonal response to a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, citalopram, in non-diabetic subjects and patients with T2DM followed by either a traditional approach or a clinic...