Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) has many links to autoimmune disorders, one of a described association being with autoimmune thyroiditis. The prevalence of thyroid antibodies is as high as 50% in patients with CSU. However, the pathogenic mechanism whereby thyroid autoimmunity is link to CSU is still poorly understood.Methods: We have analysed a case series of 20 patients with chronic urticaria and elevated TPO-antibodies, that have bee...

Background: In England 15% of children are obese and 29% children are overweight (including obese). This data has huge implications for children and young people’s (CYP) quality of life and increased risk of complications as young adults, also has great costs implications for the NHS. If we can identify and support the overweight and obese CYP and their families, we should prevent them from progressing to adult obesity and reduce associated complications.<p class="abs...

Background: Insulinoma is a rare pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, occuring in 1-4 people per million in the general population. It may appear at any age, slightly more common in female than male. Most are benign and solitary. Endogenous hyperinsulinism determines symptomatic hypoglycemia. However, the nonspecific symptoms and small size of these tumors lead to challenges in diagnosis and localization. The treatment of choice is surgical resection, but mini-invasive ablative th...

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) describes a group of autosomal recessive disorders where the cortisol biosynthesis is impaired. There are two forms of CAH: the classic form, which includes the salt-wasting and the simple virilizing forms, and the nonclassic form. CAH due to 21-hydroxylase deficiency accounts for 95% of cases. Treatment of the classic form of CAH is targeted at replacing cortisol and aldosterone and effectively controlling excess androgen symptoms by using...

Cushing’s syndrome is a collection of signs and symptoms due to prolonged exposure to cortisol. It can be difficult to diagnose, particularly endogenous Cushing’s syndrome, because other conditions share the same signs and symptoms. Diagnosing Cushing’s syndrome can be a long and extensive process, it’s treatment may be also an important challenge. We present the case of a 49-year-old man, with a history of asthma and pulmonary cribriform adenocarcinoma (ra...

Introduction: Medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) is a neuroendocrine tumor of the parafollicular or C cells of the thyroid gland. While thyroid cancer is increasingly common worldwide, MTC still has a low incidence. We present a case of a seventy-one-years-old woman who presented in our unit after an axillary adenopathy biopsy which tested sparsely positive for KeratinPan, CK7, CEA, TTF1, Chromogranin, Snaptophysin and calcitonin, focal positive for EMA, PAX8, Ki67 30%. Also multi...

Low plasma SHBG levels in overweight individuals are a biomarker for the metabolic syndrome and are predictive of type 2 diabetes and risk of cardiovascular disease. There are no in vivo models to study SHBG expression and regulation during obesity development. The main reason for this is that the obesity-prone rodent models cannot be used to study this issue since rodents unlike humans do not express the SHBG gene in their livers. We have developed by crossi...

Low circulating sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Mediterranean diet has been associated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease. We have recently shown that olive oil consumption is associated with elevated SHBG serum levels and that PPARγ downregulation induced by oleoyl-CoA is an important underlying mechanism of such regulation. Red wine is also an important component of the Mediterranean diet and its...

Low plasma SHBG is an independent risk factor of cardiovascular disease. Our recent work has shown that SHBG gene expression can be regulated indirectly through HNF4α gene expression. In this regard, we have identified that an increase in hepatic palmitate induced by high carbohydrate diets and pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNFα and IL1β) was able to reduce hepatic HNF4α protein levels which, in turn, decreased SHBG production. The Mediterranean diet, in whic...

Human sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) is produced and secreted by the liver and it binds androgens and estrogens with high affinity. In blood, SHBG acts as a carrier of these sex steroids and regulates their bioavailability. Low plasma SHBG levels are associated with obesity, abdominal adiposity and metabolic syndrome, and predict the development of type 2 diabetes. In addition, an inverse relationship between plasma SHBG levels and risk of cardiovascular disease has been ...