Endocrine Abstracts

Cushing’s syndrome is characterized by a diverse set of clinical manifestations, including hypertension, apparent obesity and metabolic aberrations such as diabetes, dyslipidaemia, ultimately leading to the metabolic syndrome. AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is an intracellular energy sensor. It integrates nutritional and hormonal signals by switching on catabolic pathways, such as fatty acid oxidation and glycolysis and switching off anabolic pathways, such as fatty ...

We have recently reported that cannabinoids can stimulate hypothalamic and heart AMPK activity and can inhibit liver and adipose tissue AMPK activity in rats (Kola et al., JBC, 2005). These data are in accordance with the known orexigenic and adipogenic cannabinoid effects and also with their beneficial effects on the ischaemic heart. We have studied the effects of cannabinoids on AMPK activity in tissues from wild type (WT) and CB1 knockout (KO) mice to see if the CB1 ...

Background: Cushing’s syndrome results from chronic exposure to excessive levels of glucocorticoids (GC). The clinical manifestations associated with hypercortisolaemia are variable and differ widely in severity, including hypertension, apparent obesity and metabolic aberrations such as diabetes, dyslipidaemia, ultimately leading to changes similar to the metabolic syndrome. We hypothesised that GC might influence the expression of the genes involved in lipogenesis and gl...