Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Many chemicals present within the environment, as well as natural and artificial components of our diet, have the potential to interfere with the physiological role of hormones, interfering with hormone biosynthesis, signalling or metabolism. In the last years AMH, a protein secreted by granulosa cells, has emerged as a reliable marker of ovarian reserve. It is largely accepted the influence of age and smoking on AMH serum levels, although a clear effect of environ...

Recent reports have proven gastric pH as key for both dissolution and bioavailability of oral thyroxine. This is clinically relevant in patients with gastric disorders to tailor an individualized treatment. In vitro, the softgel preparation of thyroxine possess a superior dissolution profile at increasing pH than the tablet T4. No data are available analyzing the correlation between the gastric pH and the softgel T4 performance in vivo and the present study i...

Abstract: Gastrointestinal disorders may impair oral thyroxine (T4) absorption by either affecting the tablet dissolution or adsorbing the hormone in the first tract of intestinal lumen. Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory disease whose interference with oral T4 treatment has been suggested but no evidence have been presented so far. This study was aimed at examining the presence of UC and its possible interference in the pharmacologic thyroid homeostasis, in a large co...

Pituitary apoplexy (PA) is a rare clinical syndrome due to sudden haemorrhage and/or infarction of the pituitary gland, usually within a pre-existent pituitary tumour. Even though some sporadic cases of PA associated with rare sellar lesions (such as Rathke cleft cysts) have been reported, in the vast majority of cases the syndrome occurs within a pituitary adenoma. At presentation, patients with PA usually complain of sudden and severe headache, often associated with visual l...

Studies conducted using knockout mouse model revealed that defects of PROKR2 affect the correct ontogeny of GnRH neurons and, by consequence, neuroendocrine control of reproduction. Nevertheless its exact role during these processes and in the pathogenesis of congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (CHH) remains elusive due to the phenotypic differences observed between mouse and human. Zebrafish (ZF) has emerged in the last ten years as a reliable model organism for studying...

Purpose: Skeletal muscle has been recognized as a thyroid hormones (THs) target for contractile function, regeneration, metabolism and glucose disposal. Despite a role in regulating muscle development has been described, little is known about the role of THs in regulating muscle homeostasis in a pathological state such as food deprivation induced atrophy. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether thyroid hormones may hamper the fasting induced skeletal muscle atrophy an...

Background: Skeletal muscle is known to be a target of THs, regulating oxygen consumption, fiber composition, calcium mobilization and glucose uptake. However, a possible role for THs in muscle homeostasis and cellular metabolism under pathological has never been investigated. Food deprivation induces skeletal muscle atrophy, causing metabolic changes, and forcing the tissue to utilize fatty acid as the main oxidation substrate. Aim of this project was to understand whether T3...

Introduction: Since DI was reported to be associated to increase mortality, the aim of this study is to evaluate the presence of autonomic dysfunction (AD) in patients with DI.Methods: We enrolled 12 patients (six females) with central idiopathic DI and 12 controls, matched for age, sex and common cardiovascular risk factors, who were evaluated using the tilt, lying-to-standing, hand grip, deep breath, Valsalva maneuver and Stroop tests.<p class="abs...

Oxidative stress plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of Graves’ Orbitopathy (GO), supporting the use of antioxidants in GO patients. Selenium has a beneficial effect, but other antioxidants have not been investigated. Here we evaluated several antioxidants in primary cultures of orbital fibroblasts from GO patients and control subjects. The following substances were tested: Vitamin C (Vit-C), N-Acetyl-l-Cysteine (NAC), melatonin (Mel), retinol (Ret), beta-carotene (b...

The G protein-coupled receptor PROKR2 play an important and not fully understood role in GnRH-secreting neurons physiology. Indeed, mutations of PROKR2 in humans are known to cause Congenital Hypogonadotropic Hypogonadism (CHH) although with an important reproductive and olfactory phenotypic heterogeneity. The attempt to mimic PROKR2 human allelic variants in mouse model has so far failed to give insights into the mechanisms involved. The zebrafish (ZF), due to its amenability...