Endocrine Abstracts

Colour perception depends on light, photoreception and central processing in the nervous system. Newton, in 1666, showed the coloured spectrum formed from white light passed through a prism underwent no further splitting on passing through a second prism. Newton favoured the corpuscular theory of light, opposing the wave theory of Huygens, which was taken up about 1800 by Thomas Young to explain experiments on diffraction and later formulated the trichromatic theory of human c...

The widespread use of abdominal CT/MRI has resulted in a new and common diagnosis for the clinical endocrinologist – the management of patients with adrenal incidentalomas. Defined as an adrenal mass discovered incidentally in the work-up or treatment of clinical conditions not related to suspicion of adrenal disease, incidentalomas cover a spectrum of underlying adrenal pathologies with a common pathway of discovery. Because of the risk of malignancy, they raise uncertai...

In mammalian tissues, two isozymes of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11β-HSD) catalyze the interconversion of hormonally active cortisol (F) and inactive cortisone (E). 11β-HSD2 is a high affinity dehydrogenase expressed in adult kidney that inactivates F to E protecting the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) (which has equal affinity for F and aldosterone in vitro) from cortisol excess. ‘Cushing’s disease of the kidney’ occurs in the hyper...

After synthesis in the skin or intake with the diet, vitamin D3 is hydroxylated in the liver to 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), and subsequently in the kidney to 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)2D). The major vitamin D store is the circulating 25(OH)D. The serum 25(OH)D concentration is the measurement of choice to assess the vitamin D status. It is relatively stable and not directly influenced by hormones or calcium in the diet. The half life of serum 25(OH)D is around 25 day...

The PI3 kinase family plays an important role in controlling many critical biological processes. There is accumulating evidence that PI3 kinase signalling is involving in a range of diseases and that PI3 kinase inhibitors could offer considerable therapeutic potential. This presentation will focus on the discovery and development of PI3 kinase inhibitors for cancer treatment. The availability of potent and selective PI3 kinase inhibitors is particularly timely given the accumu...

The issue of treatment-resistant pituitary tumour growth remains relatively under-explored. We describe the case of a gentleman whose diagnosis and management involved several medical disciplines and his management proved challenging over the long term.A 47-year-old gentleman who was seen by a variety of specialists before and after diagnosis for the complications of his aggressive acromegaly.Initially seen in 1997 by an Occupation...

The seminal studies of Harvey Cushing informed us of the deleterious consequences of circulating cortisol excess – hypertension, osteoporosis and obesity that contributes to diabetes and premature mortality. As such Cushing’s syndrome offers an excellent paradigm for the metabolic syndrome. However circulating cortisol concentrations are invariably normal in patients with metabolic syndrome. The tissue-specific generation of cortisol, independent of circulating level...

Proliferative diabetic retinopathy is a major complication of diabetes that is characterised by the growth of new blood vessels from the pre-existing retinal circulation into the vitreous humour, i.e. it is a process of angiogenesis. The initial insult is capillary loss in the mid-peripheral and peripheral retina. The resultant retinal hypoxia stimulates the production of pro-angiogenic growth factors, with vascular endothelial growth factor and the growth hormone/insulin-like...

Background: Hirsutism carries with it significant cosmetic and psycho-social issues. Recent research has shown that various spearmint herbal tea preparations have anti-androgenic properties.What is not known are the specific biochemical reductions in androgen levels and also more importantly, the clinical effects – judged both subjectively and objectively – of the use of spearmint tea for patients with Hirsutism due to PCOS (REC approved).<...

The nuclear vitamin D receptor (VDR) can recognize and bind the 1,25(OH)2D3 (1,25D) hormone and the carcinogenic bile acid lithocholic acid (LCA) as cognate ligands. VDR liganded with 1,25D or LCA can elicit expression of the metabolizing enzyme CYP3A4 within enteric cells, suggesting an important role for VDR in cellular detoxification in addition to its well-defined endocrine effects on calcium and phosphate homeostasis. Using a range of biochemical and...