Endocrine Abstracts

Diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Criteria for high risk populations that should be screened for diabetes needs be revising.Hospital admissions are stressful events and abnormally high random blood glucose levels are not acted upon appropriately.We studied 100 consecutive admissions to coronary care unit to assess the incidence of hyperglycaemia/diabetes on admiss...

Introduction: Anosmin-1, which is implicated in the pathogenesis of X-linked Kallmann`s syndrome, consists of a cysteine rich region, followed by a WAP domain and 4 fibronectin type III (FN3) domains. The N-terminal region of anosmin-1, WAP and 1st FN3 domain, is highly conserved in a wide variety of species which suggests that the activity of the protein resides in these conserved segments. Difficulties in the expression of the full-length anosmin-1 by Chinese hamster ovary c...

Epidemiological studies of postmenopausal women on oral oestrogen replacement therapy (ERT) show a reduction in the risk of developing colon carcinoma. Our previous study demonstrated that 17beta-oestradiol (E2) induced apoptosis in COLO205, a colonic cancer cell line. The aim of this study is to identify the genes important in the E2-induced apoptosis. cDNA array analysis 24h post E2 treatment showed a decrease in mRNA of erbB3 of 92%, K-RAS of 83% and p68TRK-T3 of 98% wherea...

Background: Leydig cell ovarian tumors (LCOT) represent a rare type of sex-cord stromal tumors accounting for less than 0.1% of all ovarian tumors. (1) Although rarely described in young, LCOT most commonly occur in postmenopausal women (2). The prominent clinical features of LCOT are rapidly progressive virilization, recently described, secondary erythrocytosis and OSA (3). Suppressed plasma leptin has also been reported in patients with LCOT (4), however direct correlation o...

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 ...

Adrenal masses are common incidental radiological findings. It has been estimated that as many as 10–20% of patients with essential hypertension may suffer from undiagnosed primary aldosteronism (PA). In patients who have both adrenal incidentaloma, which the functioning one must be identified. We report a case where an unilateral PA was detected on 18F-fluorodexoyglucose (FDG)-positron emission tomography (PET), and comfirmed by adrenal venous sampling.<p ...

Objective: Pseudohypoparathyroidism type 1b (PHP-1b) is rare disorders resulting from genetic and epigenetic aberrations in the GNAS locus. PHP-1b usually defined by isolated renal resistance to PTH, is due to a maternal loss of GNAS exonA/B methylation, leading to decreased Gs’α expression in specific tissues. To clarify the usefulness of methylation specific multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MS-MLPA), we evaluate the genetic and epigenetic changes o...

Background: The higher prevalence of urinary albumin was reported in patients with primary aldosteronism (PA) than those with essential hypertension (EH). It remains to be unclear, although ‘glomerular hyperfiltration (HF)’ was hypothesized as one of the mechanisms of urinary albumin.Objectives: To clarify the risk factor of urinary albumin and the relationship with HF in PA.Methods: 123 patients with PA were treated acco...

The activation of local renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system (RAAS) plays a pivotal role in the overall pathophysiology of the cardiovascular and renal diseases. Aldosterone can activate local renin and angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE). However, the effects of blockade of aldosterone on tissue RAAS including (pro)renin receptor and ACE2 are unclear in obese hypertensive rats induced by high-salt diet. Obese Zucker rats (ZOR) were fed with normal or high-salt diet ...

Aim: To clarify what arises from the decease of visceral adiposity in Japanese diabetic patients with visceral fat accumulation.Patients: Diabetic patients (n=30) whose visceral fat areas (V), determined with abdominal CT, were larger than 100 cm2.Methods: V was followed at every 6 month, and clinical profiles and course were compared of eight patients (group D), whose changes of V(ΔV=(<i...