Endocrine Abstracts

Background: In-patients inadequate food intake can worsen the prevalence and degree of malnutrition.Patients and methods: A “one day” questionnaire was used in medicine (M-Dpts) geriatric (G-Dpts) and surgery (S-Dpts) departments of a university hospital to: i) evaluate nutritional status with the Detky score, ii) quantify food intake, iii) understand the reasons of non-consumption of in-patients (n 286, 46 & 104 in M-, G- & S-Dpts, res...

Introduction: Episodes of poorly controlled diabetes (DM) are one of the most frequent medical complications during hospitalization in the elderly population.Goals: To analyze the mortality rate (M) in patients with DM who undergo some medical decompensation during admission to Vascular Surgery and Angiology (VS).Material and methods: Descriptive analysis of patients admitted to VS who suffered some type of medical decompensation t...

Glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP1) acts as both a peripheral incretin hormone and a central neuropeptide to regulate glucose and energy homeostasis. Within the brain, GLP1 is synthesised by a discrete collection of neurones in the brainstem, and presynaptic release of GLP1 results in binding to postsynaptic GLP1 receptors (GLP1R). The pattern of projections from these GLP1 synthesising neurones in the mouse brain has been described previously1,2. Here we use a novel tra...

GH is used primarily to increase adult height in short children with GHD/NSD with little knowledge about the impact of GH on health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Therefore this study was carried out to evaluate HRQoL in adult patients with childhood onset GHD/NSD at the end of GH therapy.HrQoL was measured by patient self-report using two generic questionnaires, SF36 and NHP. Patient data were compared to representative norm data. Clinical data as wel...

Colocalisation of hormones has been demonstrated for growth hormone (GH) and prolactin in the normal adult human pituitary, and for many other hormones in pituitary adenomas. We have investigated whether colocalisation of GH and other hormones occurs earlier, during onto-genesis. Pituitaries from therapeutically aborted male human fetuses of 15–20 weeks gestational age (with ethical approval) were fixed by immersion in 4% buffered formaldehyde and divided in halves, one o...

Alstrom syndrome is an autosomal recessive disorder characterised by obesity, sensorineural deafness, cone-rod dystrophy and hypergonadotrophic hypogonadism. Diabetes in these patients is characterised by severe insulin resistance.We describe the management of diabetes in a 28 year old male patient with Alstrom syndrome and severe insulin resistance. Obesity developed early in childhood and at 3 years weight was 22.2 kg. Genetic studies revealed that the patient is a compo...

The factors affecting counterregulatory (CR) responses to hypoglycaemia in T2DM remain uncertain. Previous studies have suggested an effect of glycaemic control on CR responses in T2DM. Little data exists on the effect of treatment with metformin (MET) vs. Sulphonylurea (SUL) on the CR responses to hypoglycaemia in T2DM.To date, we have performed stepped hypoglycaemic hyperinsulinaemic clamp studies (2-4 mU/kg/min) on 5 subjects treated with MET (Age 50....

Vasopressin release is stimulated following the administration of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA ) in man. MDMA and a major metabolite, 4-hydroxy-3-methoxymethamphetamine (HMMA), have also been shown to stimulate neurohypophysial hormone release in vitro. A study has now been performed comparing the response to four other metabolites with the parent compound. Hypothalami obtained from male Wistar rats were exposed to medium alone (B1) and the medium containing ...

Objectives: Secretion of GH, a pituitary and anabolic hormone that reduces visceral fat, is diminished in obese or elderly subjects. The reduced GH may induce visceral fat accumulation and subsequently accelerate metabolic syndrome in these population. In the present study, we sought the effect of chronic GH supplement on visceral fat and glucose metabolism in diet-induced obese (DIO) mice.Methods and results: Male obese mice (C57BL/6, 12 weeks old) unde...

This study presents epidemiological data of 1512 Italian acromegalic patients who had been diagnosed from 1980 to 2002 and followed-up for more than 10 years, retrospectively collected by 24 tertiary referral centers. Data on co-morbidities and mortality were compared to those of the general Italian population obtained by the Italian National Institute of Statistic. At diagnosis median age of patients (41% M, 59% F) was 46 years, GH (mean±S.D.) 31±37 m...