Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Pregnancy is a stress test on maternal thyroid and pregnant women may be more susceptible to thyroid dysfunction. Consequences of this may be harmful for the mother and fetus. Smoking has been associated with alterations in thyroid hormone concentrations, but little knowledge exists on this association in pregnant women.Subjects and methods: The study population is large, prospective population-based Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 (n...

Introduction: Foetus is dependent on maternal thyroid hormone production during the first trimester. Thus, maternal thyroid dysfunction and thyroid antibodies may affect thyroid function of the offspring.Subjects and methods: We studied a subcohort (n=2000 mother–child-pairs) from a prospective population-based Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 (singleton births, total n=9247) covering data throughout pregnancy, childhood and adolesce...

Background: Obesity plays an important role in the aetiology of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Variants in the fat-mass and obesity-associated (FTO) gene have recently been shown to influence adiposity and predispose to common obesity (Frayling et al., Science 2007 316 889–894).Aim: Our aim was to establish whether FTO variants are also implicated in PCOS-susceptibility.Methods: A genetic ...