Endocrine Abstracts

Type II diabetes is a clinical disorder of glucose and fat metabolism, caused by an inability of insulin to promote sufficient glucose uptake into adipose tissue and striated muscle and to prevent glucose output from the liver. Skeletal muscle is an important element for the maintenance of glucose homeostasis because it can increase, after stimulation, glucose uptake from the blood. In previous experiments we found that acylated ghrelin (AG), unacylated ghrelin (UAG), obestati...

The hypothalamic hormone growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH), has been shown to function via its receptor splice variants as an autocrine/paracrine growth factor in normal and malignant cell lines and tissues, besides positively regulating growth hormone (GH) synthesis and secretion from the pituitary. Moreover, GHRH antagonists are known to suppress the proliferation of a wide variety of cancer cells through mechanisms yet to be fully elucidated. Aim of this study was to ...

Pancreatic islet microendothelium exhibits unique structural and functional features, in an interdependent physical and functional relationship with the neighbouring β-cells. Glucose toxicity is not solely restricted to β-cells, but affects also survival, proliferation of human pancreatic islet endothelial cells, thus possibly contributing to β-cell function impairment and β-cell loss. It has been previously demonstrated that the ghrelin gene derived peptid...

Background: Obestatin, a ghrelin gene product was recently isolated but important questions remain regarding its regulation and its physiological effects. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of unacylated ghrelin (UAG) on obestatin levels in normal subjects and patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D).Methods: Five normal subjects and 5 T2D patients were included in this study. Unacylated ghrelin (3 μg/kg per hour) or saline were cont...

Background: Obestatin is a 27 aa peptide derived from the ghrelin gene. Obestatin was first described to exert anorexigenic effects by decreasing gastric motility in rodent models, however these results have been debated and there is presently only small information regarding its activity and its regulation in humans. Furthermore, its interactions with acylated ghrelin (AG), derived from the same gene, have not been evaluated. Therefore, in these preliminary data, we sought to...

Somatostatin (SST) and growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) are hypothalamic hormones that, respectively, inhibit and stimulate pituitary GH secretion. In addition, in peripheral tissues somatostatin and its analogues inhibit, whereas GHRH stimulates, both normal and cancer cell growth and survival. Furthermore, both somatostatin receptor 2 (SSTR-2) and GHRH expression have been shown in normal human endometrium. Endometriosis is a common estrogen-dependent disorder defined...

Cardiovascular (CV) diseases significantly contribute to the mortality excess observed in survivors of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who received hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). The study explores advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) levels, inflammatory status and lipid profile in a cohort of ALL survivors, in order to investigate their potential role in the pathogenesis of CV late effects. Inclusion criteria were: a) previous diagnosis of ALL...

Background: Primary aldosteronism (PA) is the most frequent form of secondary hypertension, with a high prevalence in resistant hypertension (RH), a condition of insufficient blood pressure (BP) control despite a 3-drug based treatment at full dose, including a diuretic. The prevalence of PAin refractory hypertension (ReH), a condition of persistently elevated BP values despite therapy with 5 drugs, is not known.Objective: To investigate the prevalence o...

Objective: Reactive oxygen species and nitric oxide (NO) have recently been considered involved in the cardiovascular complications of patients with type 2 diabetes as NO is supposed to loose its physiological beneficial effects, due to the presence of oxygen radicals. For this reason, we tested the effects of L-arginine (ARG) and N-acetylcisteine (NAC) administration with the aim to increase NO physiological production reducing free radical formation.</p...

Background: Several studies argued that the cardiovascular evaluation of patients with nonfunctioning adrenal incidentaloma is of particular importance, even if a direct association seems difficult to underline.Objective: We aimed to evaluate the possibility of stratifying cardiometabolic risk through metanephrine levels in patients with incidentally discovered nonfunctioning adrenal adenoma.Design: In this retrospective cross-sect...