Endocrine Abstracts

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The obesity epidemic has underlined the need for new treatments to aid weight loss and prevent the associated sequelae of obesity such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidaemia and cardiovascular disease. The relatively recent discovery of brown adipose tissue (BAT) in adult humans has revived interest in activating this tissue to increase energy expenditure as a novel treatment for obesity and associated metabolic disease. BAT is a thermogenic organ that generates heat ...

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The gp130 receptor (gp130R) cytokines interleukin-6 (IL-6) and ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) can improve metabolic disease, but due to the known pro-inflammatory effects of IL-6 and the antigenic response to the clinically used form of CNTF (AxokineTM), both proteins have limited therapeutic utility. Accordingly, we recently engineered a chimeric gp130R ligand, termed IC7Fc, where one gp130 binding site has been removed from IL-6 and replaced with the leukemia ...

Critical illnesses are characterized by increased systemic cortisol availability, a vital part of the stress response. ‘Relative adrenal failure’ (later termed critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency or CIRCI) is a condition in which the systemic availability of cortisol is assumed to be insufficiently high to face the stress of the illness, and is most typically thought to occur in the acute phase of septic shock. Researchers suggested that CIRCI can b...

The balanced hormonal regulation of metabolism is the cornerstone of endocrinology. One of the most elegant aspects of our discipline is that increased or decreased hormone activities lead to predictable changes and diseases. We were surprised, therefore, to identify a novel disease where the same genetic alteration, a missense change in the beta-cell transcription factor MAFA, causes two very opposite conditions: life-threatening hypoglycaemia due to numerous small i...

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Glucocorticoids have potent effects on almost every tissue in the body and this is exemplified in patients with Cushing’s disease. Whilst Cushing’s disease is rare, glucocorticoids are commonly prescribed for their anti-inflammatory actions, but their use is associated with a series of undesirable adverse effects, including obesity, insulin resistance, hypertension, myopathy and osteoporosis. Within tissues, glucocorticoids (both endogenous and exogenous) are metabol...

Late effects of therapy can only become a meaningful concern, when the cure rate of the primary disorder is high enough to provide sufficient survivors. This happened for childhood cancer survivors around 50 years ago. The primary treatment modalities were surgery, radiotherapy, and combination chemotherapy. Amongst the most common treatment complications were dysfunction of the pituitary, thyroid, and gonad. The observation of gonadal damage and subsequent infertility led to ...