Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Prior to 2014 Portsmouth patients with Turners syndrome (TS) were seen in a variety of endocrine clinics. Screening investigations e.g. cardiac echo, necessitated further appointments. The Turners Syndrome Support Society (TSSS) recommend that ladies should be under the care of a specialist multi-disciplinary TS clinic, equipped to manage the specific medical problems associated with the syndrome.Innovation: Portsmouth Endocrine Department es...

Iodine deficiency may lead to reduced thyroid hormone production and ultimately hypothyroidism. The UK has previously been considered to be iodine sufficient, however recent evidence suggests the UK may be iodine deficient. Iodine status can be assessed in several ways, including measurement of urinary iodine excretion, for which inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is considered the gold standard method.An ICP-MS method for determinatio...

Introduction: A persistently elevated parathyroid hormone (PTH) following parathyroidectomy is usually associated with vitamin D deficiency. We have previously demonstrated this to occur in ~60% of post-operative patients. We have examined the effect of routine vitamin D replacement pre-operatively on the proportion of patients with persistently elevated PTH post-operatively.Methods: Data was collated retrospectively from our parathyroid database, includ...

Salt-sensitive hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity. Humans and mice with glucocorticoid receptor haploinsufficiency (GR+/−) are hypertensive, which in mice reflects activation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system. Furthermore, glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene polymorphisms associate with increased cardiovascular disease risk. Here we investigated the effect of dietary salt intake on blood pressure, heart and kidney in GR+/− mice...

Objective: Hypothyroidism is common and predominantly managed in primary care. Symptoms are non-specific, with thyroid function tests (TFT) required for diagnosis. We sought to investigate current practice in levothyroxine prescribing in primary care.Methods: We studied the initiation of levothyroxine using the General Practice Research Database (GPRD), the world’s largest database of anonymised medical records. Individuals with i) thyroid cancer ii...

Background: Magnesium, the second most abundant intracellular cation, plays a key role in cellular and metabolic reactions including protein synthesis, neurotransmission and electrolyte balance. There are no specific signs or symptoms of hypomagnesaemia and it can coexist with other electrolyte abnormalities. According to various surveys the prevalence of low Magnesium varies between 2–10% in hospitalized patients. However, there are no clear guidelines about when to scre...

Summary: Physiological replacement of glucocorticoids in hypocortisolemic patients remains a challenge. We assessed the use of salivary cortisol and total serum cortisol profile with CBG measurement in monitoring glucocorticoid replacement in hypoadrenal patients in routine clinical practice.Methods: Serum and salivary cortisol concentrations were measured in 60 hypoadrenal patients previously documented to have cortisol deficiency on provocative testing...

It has been hypothesised that the hypothalamo–pituitary gland complex is a prime target through which environmental chemicals may alter reproductive physiology. The aim of this study was to investigate whether exposure to an environmentally relevant mix of chemicals during in utero and post-natal development can alter pituitary function. Pituitary glands were collected from 110 day-old foetuses (8 control and 8 treated) and 18 month old, post-pubertal sheep (8 cont...

Introduction: There remains considerable debate over combination T4/T3 therapy for thyroid hormone replacement. Whilst large randomised-controlled studies have failed to show benefit over T4 only, there remain patients who feel better on the combination. Animal studies suggest that up to 80% of intracellular T3 in the brain is derived from circulating T4 by local deiodination. We hypothesized that in patients on thyroxine ...

Pluripotent mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have the capacity to differentiate into osteoblasts, adipocytes and chondrocytes and are characterised by expression of CD105, CD90 and CD73. CD73 is the enzyme that dephosphorylates AMP to adenosine. The role of adenosine in MSCs is unknown and we have thus investigated whether it plays a role in the differentiation process to osteoblasts.MSCs, obtained from the bone marrow of 10 week old male rats, were expande...