Endocrine Abstracts

Atrazine is a chloro-s-triazine herbicide that has been in used worldwide for over 4 decades now. Its endocrine disrupting effects have been shown in mammals but the specific mechanism or mechanisms of action remain unknown. The aim of this study was to evaluate the acute effects of atrazine on testicular antioxidant systems and on some spermatological parameters in rats.Atrazine was administered to wistar rats at a dose equivalent to 120 mg/kg or 200 mg...

We present the case of a 54-year-old female who presented with a subarachnoid haemorrhage secondary to a left posterior communicating artery aneurysm in 2002 whilst in South Africa. The aneurysm was clipped in early 2003. Post operatively, she developed polyuria and polydypsia attributed to diabetes insipidus and was started on desmopressin nasal spray. Her background medical history includes hypertension, hyperlipidaemia and hypothyroidism and her medication was perindopril, ...

A defect in klotho gene expression in mice leads to a syndrome resembling aging, including a shortened life span, hypogonadism, growth arrest, hypoactivity, skin atrophy, muscle atrophy, hearing loss, premature thymic involution, cognition impairment, motor neuron degeneration, arteriosclerosis, osteopenia, soft tissue calcification, and pulmonary emphysema among others. In contrast, overexpression of the klotho gene extends life span in the mouse. Thus, the k...

Hirsutism, defined as excessive male-pattern terminal hair growth in females, affects about 5–10% of the women of reproductive age depending on the population studied and the method used to determine its presence. Hirsutism is the primary clinical diagnostic criterion of hyperandrogenism. Hyperandrogenism can result from increased androgen production and/or increased sensitivity of hair follicles to androgens. The presence of hirsutism in women can lead to significant psy...

Hyperandrogenism in PCOS often manifests itself with the cosmetically disfiguring problems of acne, androgenetic alopecia and hirsutism. These conditions cause considerable psychological morbidity in women with PCOS.Specific treatments for these cosmetic problems should be considered in addition to hormonal or other therapy.Topical retinoids are an appropriate first line therapy for most cases of acne particularly when comedones pr...

Implicit in the justification for the enormous increase in investment in bio-molecular research that has occurred over the past 20 years has been the promise that this would provide insights relevant to the understanding of human pathophysiology and the ultimate alleviation of suffering from human disease. To this end, model organisms are enormously attractive as they provide tractable and controllable systems in which precise and ‘clean’ data can be obtained. In con...

The androgen receptor (AR) is the key transcription factor mediating androgen action during embryogenesis and postnatal life. Both adrenal and gonadal androgens act through the AR, which therefore has a major role both in female and male sexual maturation. Mutations in the X-chromosomally localized AR-gene have been associated with a variety of human disorders, namely in-born errors of male sexual differentiation as well as malignancy of endocrine organs such as prostate cance...

Pituitary growth hormone (GH) like a number of other protein hormones, shows an episodic pattern of evolution, in which periods of prolonged near-stasis are interrupted by short bursts of rapid change. During mammalian evolution two episodes of rapid change of GH have been identified, one in the Artiodactyla and one in the Primates. The latter underlies the well known species specificity of human GH. Cloning and characterisation of GH genes for a number of mammalian species ha...

Evolution of pituitary growth hormone (GH) in mammals has generally been very slow but with short bursts of rapid change in the evolution of some groups. Such a period of rapid change occurred in the evolution of GH in primates or a primate ancestor and gave rise to the marked species specificity of human GH. By cloning and sequencing of GH genes from a prosimian, the slow loris (Nycticebus pygmaeus), and a New World monkey, the marmoset, (Callithrix jacchus) we ...

Estrogen protects women from cardiovascular disease through an unknown mechanism. Two subtypes of estrogen receptors (ERalfa and beta)have been isolated and cloned. We have demonstrated abundant vascular expression of ERbeta in female rats and mice using immunocytochemistry. A majority of endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cell nuclei in various segments of the vascular tree showed immunoreactivity towards ERbeta. Activation of vascular ERbeta with the selective ERbeta ago...