Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Melatonin is a crucial hormone for controlling sleep rhythms and disruption of its natural secretory rhythmicity is considered to be one of the causes of type 2 diabetes mellitus. The MTNR1B gene encodes the melatonin receptor. Polymorphism rs10830963 in this gene shows an association with fasting blood glucose and impaired glucose tolerance. Current studies suggest that carriers of the minor allele G have a slightly shifted cycle of melatonin secretion toward a ...

Disruption of circadian regulation could trigger and exacerbate obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and cardiovascular disease. Experiments on rats proved that the deleterious effects of chronodisruption are extremely severe, especially during early developmental stages. Only part of them could be prevented by maternal melatonin administration, suggesting that other pathophysiological mechanisms may be involved. To investigate the role of other mechanisms that might contribute ...