Endocrine Abstracts

A 57 year old Caucasian woman complained of severe back pain and arthralgia of large joints. Her arthralgia gradually got worse and she also noticed proximal muscle weakness. Blood tests showed normal CRP but elevated alkaline phosphatase of 521 iu/l with normal Gamma GT. Phosphate was low at 0.75 mmol/l with normal corrected calcium of 2.6 mmol/l. A DEXA scan suggested osteoporosis (Spine T −2.5). Isotope bone scan revealed increased activity in the right tibia and plai...

Objective: The present study was designed to investigate the impact of insulin treatment on placental maternal and fetal vascular circulation in obese and non-obese women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).Design and methods: One hundred and ninety two women with GDM who gave birth and underwent a placental histopathological examination at Wolfson Medical Center were included in the study: 123 women who were treated with diet (Group 1) and 69 women...

BackgroundCushing’s disease (CD) is caused by high levels of blood cortisol resulting from excess secretion of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) from an anterior pituitary corticotroph adenoma. Clinical manifestations include diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis, and depression. If untreated, CD has an increased mortality of five-fold owing to cardiovascular comorbidities, stroke or raised vulnerability to infection. Currently, transsphenoidal surg...

The screening and monitoring of intestinal diseases still provides challenges within in vivo and clinical research. For example, patients with Crohn’s disease will typically have a biannual endoscopic examination – this invasive procedure is distressing for patients and hence its frequency is limited at the expense of sufficient monitoring of pathological progression. Modalities such as CT and MRI can image the GI tract, however, they are ionising, which nor...

About one in six hospital admissions are for a primary diagnosis of gastrointestinal (GI) disease in the UK, according to the British Society of Gastroenterology, and there is a similar incidence of disease in other developed countries. Inflammatory disease of the gut, in particular, alters the release of cytokines and gut hormones. Medication is used to manage GI diseases and endoscopies help visually monitor its progression. However, this procedure is invasive and causes dis...

Introduction: Efficient fuel selection between glucose and fatty acids in insulin-sensitive organs is a key feature which determines metabolic health in humans. In skeletal muscle, lipid storage and utilisation can differ between healthy and diseased individuals, however to date there are limited in vitro models to explore this. Therefore, aim of this work was to investigate the effects of nutrition on engineered skeletal muscle health and metabolism.<p class="abs...

Introduction: Cushing’s disease (CD) is a rare but devastating condition, caused by hypersecretion of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) from a corticotroph adenoma in the anterior pituitary. CD is associated with a five-fold excess mortality and clinical features including hypertension, diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, and depression. First-line treatment is transsphenoidal surgery, but this is effective in only 65% of cases and the relapse rate is high. Other treatment ...

Objective: Though many studies have looked at the neonatal outcomes in patients with gestational diabetes on different medications, there is no consensus on the preferred drug for initiation of therapy. We aim to compare the neonatal outcome in a cohort of patients attending our service, to determine if one modality is superior to the other.Methods: This study is a prospective observational study from 1-07-2015 to 31-04-2016. The data of all gestational ...

The calcium receptor (CASR) serves as one of the main regulators of the calcium homeostasis. CASR is expressed in among other tissues parathyroid chief cells and kidney tubule cells. It has been hypothesized that CASR gene variations are responsible for low circulating calcium levels together with hypercalciuria and thereby increased risk of kidney stones. The CASR gene polymorphism A986S has been shown associated to elevated serum calcium levels in vivo<...

Introduction: Subclinical hypothyroidism (subhypo) is linked to gestational hypertension (gestHT) and preeclampsia. Thyroid hormones have major influence on mitochondrial activity and the mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) reflects the functional status of the mitochondria.Aim: The aim was to estimate whether mitochondrial function is impaired in pregnant women with or without gestHT.Methods: We included third trimester pregnan...