Endocrine Abstracts

Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is associated with systemic complications, which despite successful treatment are not always totally reversible. Morbidity like venous thromboembolism, myocardial infarction, stroke, peptic ulcers, fractures and infections are higher in patients diagnosed with CS, both of adrenal and pituitary origin, and remain elevated during long-term follow-up. In fact, this increased multimorbidity risk is even present in the 3 years before diagnosis, as demon...

Environmental pollution by microplastics has been transcending usual stakeholders (such as policymakers and scientists) to become a public concern. The conspicuous, widespread occurrence of (micro)plastics together with the publicization by the media of its potential impacts on wildlife and human health have contributed for this state of affairs. Microplastics, typically defined as plastic particles smaller than 5 mm, have been detected throughout the marine, freshwater and te...

For almost three decades, my group and I have been studying the functions of known proteins and deciphering the roles of novel genes and small RNAs expressed within the reproductive axis. Many of these studies have focused on the glycoprotein hormones as well as members of the transforming growth factor β superfamily. We have also used multiple strategies to identify unique germ-cell expressed genes and probed their essential roles in knockout mouse models. These studies ...

The evidence base for starting early insulin treatment in patients with type 2 diabetes is rather scanty. In the UKPDS trial the intensive treatment of hyperglycaemia in newly detected patients with type 2 diabetes based on insulin or sulponylurea (no separation possible) revealed a significant reduction of myocardial infarction risk (15%, P=0.01), but only after prolonged post-study follow-up after 10 years1. In 2012 the ORIGIN study was published showing ...

Dr. Ronald M Evans is known for his discoveries and characterization of nuclear hormone receptors, the establishment of the nuclear receptor super family and the elucidation of their universal mechanism of action, this revealed how receptor activation by lipophilic hormones and drugs are transformed into physiology and the treatment of disease.Dr R M Evans obtained his BA and PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine in 1970 ...

Background and aims: Non-adherence to daily subcutaneous GH (r-HGH) administration may account for discrepancies between dose prescription, growth response and serum IGF1 levels but is difficult to determine. The electronic r-HGH auto-injector Easypod device has the only inbuilt retrievable dosing record, with which we aimed to assess adherence.Method: Over a 4 month period, we retrospectively retrieved dose history data in 25 clinic patients aged 10&#15...

Over the last several years, we have generated low molecular weight (LMW) antagonists of the TSH receptor (TSHR) that have the potential to be developed as drugs to treat patients with Graves’ hyperthyroidism (GD)/Graves’ ophthalmopathy (GO) and thyroid cancer. As GD is caused by persistent, unregulated activation of TSHRs by thyroid-stimulating antibodies (TSAbs) on thyrocytes and GO may be caused by activation of TSHRs on retro-orbital fibroblasts, a LMW TSHR antag...

We have uncovered the entire functional oxytocin (OT) system in the rat and human heart. In the experimentally-induced myocardial infarction (MI) in rats, the continuous OT delivery improves the cardiac work, reduces inflammation, and stimulates angiogenesis. We hypothesized that these actions of OT are mediated by increase in glucose uptake in cardiomyocytes (CM). Indeed OT (10 nM) increased basal glucose uptake in CM to 4.0±0.2 fmol/mg protein in comparison to 2.2 fmol/...

Introduction: Growth is an important and sensitive indicator of child health. Abnormal growth is a common consequence of many conditions, therefore its identification acts as a useful warning of possible pathology. Effective growth monitoring requires precise linear growth measurements; however, measurements are often inaccurate and unreliable. Measurement error influences the interpretation of growth patterns resulting in failure to identify underlying pathology or apparent g...

Background: Aldosterone to renin ratio (ARR) is the gold standard for screening of primary aldosteronism (PA). However, the lower value of ARR cannot rule out the possibility of PA. In this study, we evaluated the change of plasma aldosterone concentration (PAC) in ACTH stimulation among hypertensive patients and explored whether it improved the sensitivity of ARR for detecting PA.Method: Eighty-five patients with hypertension with plasma renin activity ...