Endocrine Abstracts

We report of two sisters with hyperandrogenism, menstrual abnormalities, and severe insulin resistance. The elder sister was seen after puberty at age 21 and she was referred for the evaluation of hirsutism and polymenorrhoea; the younger was seen earlier in life, at age 15, for the evaluation of secondary amenorrhoea. In both of them, we performed the diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in accordance to the Rotterdam criteria. They also presented a lipodystrophic ph...

Background: Acromegaly is associated with increased morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease. Several studies indicate that reduction of growth hormone (GH) to <1 μg/l or normalization of serum IGF-I reduces mortality to expected levels. Inflammatory markers, such as C-reactive protein (CRP) or haemostatic markers, such as fibrinogen have emerged as important cardiovascular risk markers in the general population.Objective and design: ...

It was postulated that different therapeutic approaches could influence the markers of inflammation in obesity but it is unknown whether overweight women with and without metabolic syndrome have the same degrees of inflammatory state. The aim of our study was to compare level of hs-CRP in obese women without other components of metabolic syndrome with hs-CRP in women with metabolic syndrome (according IDF criteria). Overweight body mass index-matched women without (OW)) (n<...

CNP, the third peptide of the mammalian natriuretic peptide family, exerts its biological effects through activation of the guanylyl cyclase B (GC-B) receptor and resulting cGMP accumulation. Our previous studies reported that CNP stimulates phosphorylation of MAPK family proteins in GH3 somatotrophs. This present study aimed to further characterise the mechanism of CNP-stimulated ERK phosphorylation and resulting biological consequences in GH3 cells. Western blot analyses sho...

Recent data suggest that circulating retinol binding protein-4 (RBP4) is involved in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance in rodents and humans. Moreover, protein C inhibitor (PCI) which specifically binds retinoic acid was found to be increased in myocardial infarction survivors who are also insulin-resistant.Therefore, we investigated the association of insulin resistance with plasma retinol binding factors (RBP4 and PCI active antigen) in nondiabeti...

Cardiac complications account for three quarter of deaths among diabetic patients. Many studies have shown that high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) correlated with the inflammatory process of atherosclerosis in the coronary artery. This study is designed to determine the levels of plasma hs-CRP in Type II diabetic patients with microalbuminuria and its association with other biochemical markers used for diabetic monitoring. All biochemical parameters were analyzed usi...

17α-Hydroxylase-C17,20-lyase (P45017α) is a key regulator enzyme of the steroid hormone biosynthesis in both the adrenals and the testes. Inhibition of this enzyme can block androgen synthesis in an early step, and may thereby be useful in the treatment of prostatic carcinoma, which is androgen-dependent in the majority of cases. Abiraterone and its analogues have been found strong inhibitors of P45017α suggesting that steroid de...

Objective: C-reactive protein (CRP) is a nontraditional risk factor that predicts cardiovascular disease but its relationship between diabetes and insulin resistance is not well documented. We evaluated the association of CRP levels and insulin resistance in a group of patients at high risk for diabetes.Materials and methods: In this study we evaluated 22 first degree relatives of type 2 diabetic patients with impaired glucose tolerance test (Group 1) an...

We have investigated the effects of estradiol valerat plus dienogest and raloxifene on serum high sensitive C - reactive protein (hsCRP) levels in healthy postmenopausal women. This study was approved by the local ethics committee. Forty eight healthy postmenopausal women were randomly divided into three groups. While group I (n=16) was given 60 mg raloxifene, group II (n=16) received continuously 2 mg estradiol valerat plus 2 mg dienogest. Group III (n=16) received no medicat...

C-type natriuretic peptide (CNP) is encoded by the Nppcgene and is abundant in the hypothalamus and anterior pituitary gonadotrophs. Nppc deletion leads to skeletal deformity, dwarfism, early death and female infertility. To investigate regulation of Nppcexpression and action in the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, we investigated transcriptional regulation of the Nppc promoter in alphaT3-1 gonadotroph cells by transient transfection of reporter...