Endocrine Abstracts

Abstract unavailable...

Sex steroid hormone-induced variations of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) migration are critical in determining the sex/gender-related differences in male and female pathophysiology of cardiovascular system. Although several substances present in the environment, defined endocrine disruptors (EDs), could interfere with androgen and estrogen effects, the sex/gender-related susceptibility of VSMC motility to these substances is completely unknown. Here, naringenin (Nar) and...

The high morbidity and mortality rate of women with Turner syndrome (TS) is primarily a results of the cardiovascular complications and so it is necessary an accurate and precocious diagnosis of this disease. Congenital cardiac anomalies, whose causes remains unknown, are common in TS (21–40%), in particular among patients with 45 X; between these the ventricular septal defect (VSD) is very rare (in a recent review, 3/1092 cases) (Gravholt 2004) and so in neonatal with VS...

Estrogens, in particular 17β-estradiol (E2), orchestrate cellular mechanisms involved in the development and differentiation of various neuron populations, modulation of synaptic plasticity, induction of neuronal survival, and neurogenesis. Beneficial effects of E2 have been widely reported against a variety of insults, including H2O2 injury, serum deprivation, and glutamate excitotoxicity. Recently, we identified E2 ...

Introduction: The detection of a unique genetic marker is not possible for multifactorial diseases, such as thyroid cancer (TC), where the pathological phenotype is given by the contribution of multiple genes, environmental factors and lifestyle. We found a mathematical model for inferring the risk of thyroid cancer, an example of multifactorial disease.Methods: Genetic data represented by 184 SNPs associated to thyroid tumors were used for Bayesian clus...

Introduction: Reproduction exhibit a regular cyclicity and is regulated by complex interactions between circadian signals, gonadotropins and sex steroid hormones. Peripheral circadian rhythm is generated upon cyclic transcription of clock genes expressed in several cells, e.g. granulosa cells in the ovary. Here we investigated whether cyclic intracellular events occurring in response to gonadotropins are linked to expression of clock genes.Methods: Prima...

The sex hormone 17β-estradiol (E2) exerts its pleiotropic effects through the binding to the ligand-activated transcription factor estrogen receptor alpha (ERa). The E2:ERa complex regulates several physiological processes including cell survival and proliferation through transcriptional (i.e., estrogen responsive element (ERE)-based gene transcription) and non-transcriptional membrane-initiated effects (i.e., activation of signalling cascades).Many...

Context: Subacute thyroiditis (SAT) is an inflammation of the thyroid, likely caused by a viral infection. IgG Autoantibodies (Ab) to the main thyroid antigens, including thyroglobulin (Tg) (TgAb) have been reported in a few patients with SAT and their appearance is usually transient. We investigated whether IgM TgAb can be detected in sera of patients with SAT.Design: Serum samples were collected from 17 patients with SAT, ten with Graves’ disease ...

Very Low-Calorie Ketogenic Diet (VLCKD) is currently a promising approach for the treatment of obesity. However, little is known about the side effects since most of the studies reporting them were carried out in normal weight subjects following ketogenic diet for other purposes than obesity. Thus, the aims of the study were: 1) to investigate the safety of VLCKD in subjects with obesity; 2) if VLCKD-related side effects could have an impact on its efficacy. In this prospectiv...

Objectives: A sporadic association between thyroid and non-organ-specific autoimmunity has been reported, which could be relevant for Graves’ orbitopathy (GO), an autoimmune disease affecting orbital connective tissue. We investigated whether there is an association between GO and anti-nuclear antibodies (ANAs).Methods: We performed a cross-sectional investigation in 265 consecutive patients with Graves’ disease (GD) who came to our observation...