Endocrine Abstracts

Insulin-like growth factors have fundamental roles in metabolism and apoptosis. Circulating IGF-I and IGF-II are primarily sequestrated with IGFBP-3 in ternary complexes with the acid-labile subunit. We hypothesized that polymorphisms of the IGFBP3 gene may impact circulating IGF-II concentrations.Methods: 478 Caucasian patients were selected from the Salford Diabetes Cohort for analysis. Thirteen haplotype tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) ...

Testicular dysgenesis syndrome (TDS) is a group of associated conditions (testicular germ cell tumours (TGCT), cryptorchidism, hypospadias and low sperm counts) that are thought to have a common origin in fetal life. Exposure of fetal rats to environmental chemicals such as the endocrine disrupting chemical di(n-butyl) phthalate (DBP) results in a TDS-like syndrome. However, exposed rats do not develop TGCT and the rodent is a poor model in this context. The effects of ...

Background: In most people, prolactin circulates predominantly as a 23-kDa monomer, and a high-molecular-weight form which in the vast majority of cases consists of a complex of prolactin and an anti-prolactin IgG autoantibody, commonly referred to as macroprolactin. This cross-reacts with conventional laboratory assays for prolactin.Report: In a consecutive series of 218 patients with prolactin elevated to 400 μ/l or more in men (normal range &#880...

Introduction: Propensity to centripetal adiposity is an ethnic characteristic amongst South Asians, which may underlie the excess risk for both coronary heart disease (CHD) and diabetes in this population. Circulating levels of adipocytokines (hormones which include leptin, adiponectin, tumour necrosis factor (TNF-alpha)) and C-reactive protein (CRP) reflect the adipose tissues endocrine and metabolic activity, and are implicated in CHD.Methods: We compa...

Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) has emerged in youth, disproportionately affecting ethnic minorities. Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young (MODY) has been reported in exclusively white UK children. We report the first UK Asian children with MODY, highlighting differences from T2DM.Child 1 is a slim (BMI SDS−0.14) female of Indian descent without acanthosis nigricans (AN). She presented aged 12 years with polydipsia and polyuria (HbA1c 8.6%). Hypoglycaemia w...

AimsThe increasing incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus with age in the context of ageing populations worldwide highlights the need to understand better factors that influence glucose homeostasis. Our hypothesis was that lifestyle change accompanying migration influences the relationship between pancreatic beta cell function (HOMA-B) and age.MethodsWe compared a specific migrant Gujarati community in Britain...

IntroductionWe have previously shown that patients with pituitary Cushing's have impaired quality of life vs. other pituitary tumour groups. Whether this is related to direct neural effects of excess ACTH or cortisol is uncertain. In order to address this, we compared patients who had undergone definitive treatment for pituitary vs adrenal Cushings.DesignWe assessed 14 patients with biochemically cured pituit...

IntroductionThe IGF-system has also been implicated in the pathogenesis of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. We report the effects of total energy intake on the IGF-system in two populations with a markedly different dietary macronutrient intake and cardiovascular event rate.MethodDietary macronutrient intake was measured in a specific Gujarati migrant community in Sandwell UK (n=205) compared with people ...

The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is a key factor in the regulation of blood pressure and therefore its' blockade may reduce the vascular complications which arise with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Adipose tissue expresses all the components of the RAS system that includes the pre-prohormone angiotensinogen (AGT) and its' active metabolite angiotensin II (ANG II), which mediates vasoconstriction and electrolyte balance and as such may contribute to obesity associated hyp...

Objective. The aims of our study were to utilise a combination of high fidelity phenotyping, microarray gene expression profiling and conserved synteny mapping between rodent and human genomes to identify genetic determinants underlying human hypertension.Methods. We used the stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHRSP) and a congenic strain (SP.WKYGla2c*) produced by introgressing a quantitative trait locus responsible for blood pressure regulation on rat chromosom...