Endocrine Abstracts

Human sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) is produced by the liver and secreted it into the circulation where it binds androgens and estrogens with high affinity. Therefore, SHBG acts as a carrier of these sex steroids and regulates their bioavailability. Low plasma SHBG levels are associated with obesity, fatty liver disease, abdominal adiposity and metabolic syndrome, and predict the development of type 2 diabetes. In addition, an inverse relationship between plasma SHBG lev...

Low plasma SHBG levels in overweight individuals are a biomarker for the metabolic syndrome and are predictive of type 2 diabetes and risk of cardiovascular disease. There are no in vivo models to study SHBG expression and regulation during obesity development. The main reason for this is that the obesity-prone rodent models cannot be used to study this issue since rodents unlike humans do not express the SHBG gene in their livers. We have developed by crossi...

Low circulating sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Mediterranean diet has been associated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease. We have recently shown that olive oil consumption is associated with elevated SHBG serum levels and that PPARγ downregulation induced by oleoyl-CoA is an important underlying mechanism of such regulation. Red wine is also an important component of the Mediterranean diet and its...

Low plasma SHBG is an independent risk factor of cardiovascular disease. Our recent work has shown that SHBG gene expression can be regulated indirectly through HNF4α gene expression. In this regard, we have identified that an increase in hepatic palmitate induced by high carbohydrate diets and pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNFα and IL1β) was able to reduce hepatic HNF4α protein levels which, in turn, decreased SHBG production. The Mediterranean diet, in whic...

Human sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) is produced and secreted by the liver and it binds androgens and estrogens with high affinity. In blood, SHBG acts as a carrier of these sex steroids and regulates their bioavailability. Low plasma SHBG levels are associated with obesity, abdominal adiposity and metabolic syndrome, and predict the development of type 2 diabetes. In addition, an inverse relationship between plasma SHBG levels and risk of cardiovascular disease has been ...

Low plasma SHBG levels are present in patients suffering chronic metabolic diseases, including obesity and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). In overweight individuals, low plasma SHBG levels are a biomarker for the metabolic syndrome and predict a higher risk of suffering type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Our recent results demonstrate that SHBG is more than sex hormone carrier and its reduction in obese subjects play an active role in obesity and NAFLD deve...

Epidemiological studies have shown that caffeine increases plasma SHBG levels and also reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. There are no reports describing any molecular mechanism by which caffeine regulates hepatic SHBG production. The aim of the present study was to explore whether caffeine regulates SHBG production and to determine the associated molecular mechanisms. For this purpose, in vitro and in vivo studies were performed using human HepG2 cells and ...

Sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) carries sex steroids in blood regulating their bioavailability. Red wine consumption increases plasma SHBG levels, and we have discovered that resveratrol, a polyphenol enriched in red wine, acts specifically through the human constitutive androstane receptor (CAR), a drug/xenobiotic detoxification gene regulator, to increase hepatic SHBG production. Chromatin immunoprecipitation and luciferase reporter gene assays show that human CAR binds ...

Epidemiological studies have shown that plasma SHBG levels correlate with plasma adiponectin levels, both in men and women. To the best of our knowledge there are no reports describing any molecular mechanism by which adiponectin regulates hepatic SHBG production. The aim of the present study is to explore whether adiponectin regulates SHBG production by increasing HNF-4α levels through reducing hepatic lipid content. For this purpose, in vitro studies using huma...

Low plasma sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) levels are present in patients suffering chronic metabolic diseases, including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, whether altered SHBG production plays a role in development and progression of this disease is unclear. To investigate SHBG involvement in NAFLD, we studied the effects of overexpressing SHBG in two mouse models, a genetically-induced model, by developing a double transgenic mouse by crossing the human...