Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Long term prednisone therapy (LTPT) can be associated with overweight, obesity, and short stature. Both LTPT and obesity are considered risk factor for the occurrence of the different components of the metabolic syndrome (MetS).Aim: We studied steroid-associated metabolic and clinical adverse events in children with NS and frequent relapses treated with LTPT (obese vs non-obese). Methods: Data of 30 children with SSNS...

Nephrotic syndrome (NS) in children usually has an onset between 2-8 years of age and steroids form the mainstay of management. Therapy may affect growth in children with relapsing NS.Aim: This study was carried out to investigate linear growth and weigh gain in children with NS and multiple relapses who receiving long-term prednisone therapy (LTPT) for 5 years.Methods: Data of 30 children with SSNS was analysed retrospectively. Th...

Background and aims: Current evidence highlights that dietary cholesterol, trans-fatty acids and saturated fatty acids (SFAs) are all known to increase the levels of systemic atherogenic lipoproteins and cardiovascular disease. The aim of this study was to observe the direct effect of dietary change, via a calorie-restricted diet on i) cardio-metabolic profile and ii) a high-fat meal challenge pre- and post-3-month intervention.Methods: T2DM subjects (Sa...

Lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 (LpPLA2) is a member of the phospholipaseA2 super family of enzymes, and is upregulated in arterial inflammation, obesity and cardiovascular disease. The other isoforms, iPLA2 and cPLA2, appear to contribute to inflammation through production of lipid mediators. The role of PLA2 in human adipose tissue (AT) is unclear, therefore we sought to i) characterise PLA2 isoforms in lean, obese, T2DM abdominal subcutaneous (AbdSc) and omental (Om...

Background: Previous genome wide association studies in Caucasian and South Asian populations have identified over 35 loci for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) risk. However, little is known about the contribution of these loci in T2DM from a Saudi Arabian population. In this study we investigated for the first time, the association of 38 previously identified T2DM risk loci (32 loci from Caucasian and six loci from South Asian populations) in 1166 T2DM patients and 1235 health...

Introduction: The endoplasmic reticulum enzyme glucose-6-phosphatase catalyzes the common terminal reaction in the gluconeogenic and glycogenolytic pathways and plays a central role in glucose homeostasis. In most mammals, different G6PC subunits are encoded by three paralogous genes (G6PC, G6PC2, and G6PC3). Mutations in G6PC and G6PC3 are responsible for human Mendelian diseases, whereas variants in G6PC2 are associated with fasting glucose (FG) levels.<p class="abstext"...

Genetics plays a crucial role in the development of metabolic syndrome (MetS). Here we examined the association between endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) gene polymorphisms and MetS in a Saudi Arabian cohort to extend the understanding of the genetic basis of MetS in diverse ethnic populations. Anthropometric, clinical and biochemical parameters as well as genotyping for 894G>T, −786T>C variants of eNOS gene by PCR–RFLP and 4a/b by direct PCR were per...

Habitual post-prandial absorption of saturated fatty acids (SFAs) increases systemic atherogenic lipoproteins and a pro-inflammatory response, a condition exacerbated by obesity, insulin resistance (IR) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Also, gut derived bacteria (endotoxin) is absorbed coupled to damaging lipoproteins as it crosses the mucosa, which could directly impact on adipose tissue, as our previous studies suggest. The current studies addressed whether a SFA rich me...

Introduction: There are patients who remain symptomatic with hypothyroidism despite apparent adequate replacement on levothyroxine (LT4) therapy. We present an observation where monozygotic twins responded only to combination therapy with liothyroinine (LT3), and were found to have a genetic variation which may have clinical significance in thyroid metabolism.Case report: A 47-year-old female with polyglandular auto-immune syndrome (APS1) presented with ...

Introduction: Hypo-&hyperkalaemia are common laboratory abnormalities, complicating up to 10% of all hospital admissions and contributing to mortality. Ideally, patients with mild deviations can be treated as outpatients, and only those patients with objectively severe or life-threatening levels are hospitalized. Once admitted, there are few data as to whether the degree of electrolyte disturbance consumes greater resource(s). We analysed the admission and discharge data, ...