Endocrine Abstracts

The relative risk associated with diabetes and obesity is significantly higher for different carcinomas including thyroid cancer. There is some evidence that insulin resistance and as a consequence hyperinsulinemia rather than hyperglycemia are responsible for the higher prevalence of cancer in diabetic and obese patients. In the thyroid insulin/IGF-depending signalling is part of the mitogenic pathways that regulate benign and malignant growth. In diabetics with hyperinsuline...

There is some evidence from different studies that (1) stem cells reside in thyroid tissue (as in all other tissues) for life-time of the organism, (2) stem cells and their progeny are under the control of niches that limit proliferation of these undifferentiated cells, (3) induction of apoptosis and (excessive) growth stimulation can overcome strict niche control, (4) under these conditions actively cycling, more or less differentiated progenitor may grow faster than the surr...