Endocrine Abstracts

Various psychiatric conditions have been associated with stress and alterations in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity. Yet while stress is a general phenomenon, illness is only seen in a proportion of individuals, suggesting genetic modifiers of ability to cope with stress. 11-beta hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (HSD1) regenerates corticosterone from inert 11-dehydrocorticosterone, amplifying the levels of glucocorticoids and is expressed in the brain. To deter...

Selenium (Se) represents an essential trace element and acts as catalytic entity in thyroid hormone deiodinases (Dio), glutathione peroxidases or thioredoxin reductases. Se-deficiencies worsen a variety of conditions of which some display a sex-bias, including certain forms of cancer, autoimmune- and infectious diseases. Using C57BI/6 mice as model organism, we determined enzymatic activities and transcript levels of certain selenoproteins in various tissues. mRNA levels of th...

Introduction: Results of many studies indicate that the BsmI and FokI polymorphisms in the VDR gene may influence bone tissue metabolism and may be useful in means of identifying patients at greater risk of osteoporosis.Aim of the study: To determine frequency of polymorphic variants of VDR gene (BsmI and FokI) and its relationship to phenotypic features characterizing bone status (BMD).Materials and methods: 176 randomly selected ...

Introduction: Intramuscular Testosterone Undecanoate (TU, Nebido®) has become available in November 2004 in Europe for the treatment of male hypogonadism. Continuous physiological hormone replacement is necessary for transgender patients, both prior to the gender adjustment operation and for the remainder of the individual’s lifetime. The administration of long-acting TU therefore stood to reason as part of cross-gender testosterone therapy for female-to-m...

Hyperinsulinemia leading to insulin resistance is the major factor in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes mellitus. And also defect in glucose uptake is among the primary defects associated with peripheral insulin resistance. Interestingly, the result from our previous study indicated that the ethanolic extract of Combretum decandrum Roxb. (CD) had a hypoglycemic effect in type 1 diabetic rat model. Therefore this study examined the effect of CD extract on the glucose t...

Introduction: It was found that vitamin D could have a direct effect of on adipocyte differentiation and metabolism and might be involved in glucose regulation of insulin secretion, which may be speculated from finding of a nuclear localization of 1,25-(OH)2D3 in the pancreatic islets. In recent years several polymorphisms in VDR gene, which are potent to alter the activity of VDR protein, have been described. BsmI and FokI polymorphisms were described in...

Free radicals are continuously produced during normal metabolism. They play important role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, carcinogenesis, degenerative processes of the brain and skin, and some diseases connected with aging. Among several natural antioxidants, estrogens are important free-radical scavengers due to the hydroxyphenolic structure of their molecules Some authors have suggested that estrogens may also influence the activity of the cellular antioxidative enz...

Tissue inflammation is usually transient but in diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) inflammation persists. It remains unclear why inflammation persists in some tissues and not in others. Recent studies have shown that stromal cells such as fibroblasts play a pivotal role in determining this persisitance. We have hypothesized that glucocorticoid (GC) activation via the enzyme 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11beta-HSD1) within fibroblasts plays a key role in ...

The meningioma is a tumour that arises from cells that form a fibrous membrane, covering the brain. They account for around 15percent of intracranial tumours and about 7percent of all people dying from brain tumours. These tumours occur more frequently in women than in men and this has lead to the suggestion that oestrogens have a role in their development and growth. Studies a decade ago with antioestrogens have proved inconclusive and therefore a medical therapy based on ant...

Objective: To assess the understanding of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) among families of Caucasian White (W) and Asian (A) with CAH, and also to evaluate the need for interpreters for Asian families attending the North West Regional CAH clinic.Design: A parent directed questionnaire was administered by two interviewers, one of whom spoke Urdu,Punjabi and Bengali to 18 A families ( M = 8 F=18) and 39 W families (M=20 F=22) with children with CAH, ...