Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Hypoparathyroidism can occur post-surgically after thyroid or parathyroid surgery or in autoimmune or genetic diseases. Over several decades, the management of hypoparathyroidism included only supplementation with calcium, vitamin D3 (cholecaliferol), as well as active 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (calcitriol). In cases with severe hypoparathyroidism, this treatment can be limited by hypercalciuria, and these patients often need substitution with recombinant parathyro...

Introduction: Hypertension (HTN) is a major cardiovascular (CV) risk factor and independent predictor of the increased mortality in patients with acromegaly. Surgical cure of acromegaly is associated with improvement in blood pressure (BP) levels, however little is known on the effect of pegvisomant (PEGV) treatment on HTN.Methods/design: ACROSTUDY is an open-label, international, prospective, non-interventional study monitoring the long-term safety of P...

Background: Obesity is a major risk factor to develop heart failure, in part due to possible lipotoxic effects of increased intramyocardial (MYCL) and/or pericardial (PERI) lipid accumulation. Recent evidence suggests that MYCL is highly dynamic and might rather be a surrogate marker for disturbed energy metabolism than the underlying cause of cardiac dysfunction. On the other hand, PERI might contribute directly by mechanic and paracrine effects. Therefore, we hypothesized th...

Introduction: Growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15) has recently been characterized as a cardiovascular risk factor. GDF15 correlates with insulin resistance and obesity in cross-sectional studies and exerts anorexigenic effects in interventional rodent studies. GDF15 has been proposed as a possible therapeutic target in the treatment of obesity, however its meal- and nutrient-dependent regulation in humans has not been investigated previously.Methods...

Introduction: Heterozygous inactivating mutations of the calcium sensing receptor (CaSR) gene cause mild alterations in calcium metabolism (familiar hypocalciuric hypercalcemia (FHH)). However, in addition to the parathyroid gland CaSR expression was recently identified in the myocardium and many other endocrine cells including pancreatic islet cells, entero-endocine cells and adipose tissue. So far, it is unknown whether FHH is associated with cardio-metabolic altera...

Background: Patients being cured of craniopharyngioma (CP) often suffer from severe hypothalamic obesity due to tumor localization or therapeutic interventions, which has a major impact on increased mortality and reduced quality of life. Gastric bypass surgery (GBS) was suggested to be an effective therapeutic option for weight reduction in those patients. However, long-term changes in body weight and postsurgical complications are unknown.Methods: 5 pat...

Glucocorticoid feed-back in pituitary corticotrophs represses POMC transcription and ACTH release. Serum and glucocorticoid-induced kinase 1 (Sgk1) has been identified as an immediate early target of glucocorticoids in many tissues, however its expression and function in corticotrophs are unknown.We show here that Sgk1 is present in the human pituitary gland at both mRNA and protein levels. Double-immunohistochemistry revealed that Sgk1 is expressed in d...

Gestational weight gain has been linked to obesity in women of childbearing age. Mothers who breastfeed present less postpartum weight retention. The underlying pathophysiological mechanisms are unknown. This study aimed at investigating the impact of breastfeeding on maternal appetite-regulating hormones.The clinical trial recruited 29 women divided in three age- and BMI-matched groups. The first group included 10 fully breastfeeding mothers of 3 to 6 m...

Background: Untreated GH-deficiency (GHD) in adults has been suggested to be associated with an increased prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). Proposed causative factors are the tendency to overweight and the insulin resistance due to central adiposity.Patients and methods: The KIMS (Pfizer International Metabolic Database) was used to evaluate the prevalence of DM in both childhood-onset (CO; n=1977; 56% males) and in adult-onset (AO; ...

The mechanisms responsible for the progressive failure of hypoglycemia counter-regulation in type-1 diabetes (T1DM) are poorly understood. Alterations of brain energy metabolism could influence glucose sensing by the brain and, thus contribute to hypoglycemia associated autonomic failure. Thus, we measured intraneuronal kinetics of total ATP-synthesis from PCr (kfor) in T1DM patients and effects of hypo/hyperglycemia on this brain energy metabolism. Healthy n...