Endocrine Abstracts

Background: The menstrual pattern is influenced by thyroid hormones directly through impact on the ovaries and indirectly through impact on SHBG, PRL, and GnRH secretion and coagulation factors. Treating thyroid dysfunction can reverse menstrual abnormalities and thus improve fertility.Aim: Elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying the link between thyroid and ovarian function is important for determining the relationship between thyroid status, fe...

Despite an accurate management, in about 20% of hypothyroid patients showing an increased need for oral levothyroxine (LT4), the leading cause of treatment refractoriness remains unknown. Some studies hypothesized the relationship between gut microbiota composition and thyroid homeostasis, but the possible involvement of microflora in the efficacy of LT4 treatment has not been evaluated yet, and this represents the aim of our study. We examined the faecal microflora compositio...

Recent reports have proven gastric pH as key for both dissolution and bioavailability of oral thyroxine. This is clinically relevant in patients with gastric disorders to tailor an individualized treatment. In vitro, the softgel preparation of thyroxine possess a superior dissolution profile at increasing pH than the tablet T4. No data are available analyzing the correlation between the gastric pH and the softgel T4 performance in vivo and the present study i...

Abstract: Gastrointestinal disorders may impair oral thyroxine (T4) absorption by either affecting the tablet dissolution or adsorbing the hormone in the first tract of intestinal lumen. Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory disease whose interference with oral T4 treatment has been suggested but no evidence have been presented so far. This study was aimed at examining the presence of UC and its possible interference in the pharmacologic thyroid homeostasis, in a large co...

Purpose: Skeletal muscle has been recognized as a thyroid hormones (THs) target for contractile function, regeneration, metabolism and glucose disposal. Despite a role in regulating muscle development has been described, little is known about the role of THs in regulating muscle homeostasis in a pathological state such as food deprivation induced atrophy. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether thyroid hormones may hamper the fasting induced skeletal muscle atrophy an...

Background: Skeletal muscle is known to be a target of THs, regulating oxygen consumption, fiber composition, calcium mobilization and glucose uptake. However, a possible role for THs in muscle homeostasis and cellular metabolism under pathological has never been investigated. Food deprivation induces skeletal muscle atrophy, causing metabolic changes, and forcing the tissue to utilize fatty acid as the main oxidation substrate. Aim of this project was to understand whether T3...

Systematic studies on the association of autoimmune thyroiditis (AIT), as pivotal disease and nonendocrine autoimmune diseases (NEAD) are scarce and mostly based only on the presence of circulating autoantibodies. In a large cohort of consecutive outpatients, AIT was diagnosed in 1541 (28.2%) and whenever additional autoimmune disorders were suspected, they underwent further screening. Diagnostic criteria were according with the Consensus Conferences for each suspected autoimm...

Some case report suggested that increased need for thyroxine may occur in overt celiac disease (CD). However, overt CD (with typical gastrointestinal symptoms) only represents 10 to 20% of cases of CD, being the majority represented by the atypical CD and other occult forms, in which extra intestinal symptoms prevail. Few data on the need for oral T4 in patients with occult CD are available. In this study we analyzed the replacement T4 dose in 68 hypothyr...

Autoimmune thyroiditis (AT) may occur as a single disease or associated with further endocrine and non endocrine autoimmune diseases (NEAD). Chronic autoimmune gastritis (CAG) is the more frequently associated NEAD. A prevalent Th1-representative pattern of cytokines and chemokines has been described in isolated autoimmune thyroiditis. However, the behaviour of chemokines when AT is associated with CAG is not known. Aim of the study has been to measure serum levels of CXCL10 i...

Increased need for thyroxine has been described in several gastrointestinal disorders (H. pylori infection, gastric atrophy, celiac disease), even in their occult or symptomless forms. A transitory or stable impairment of gastric acidity, by increasing pH value, seems to interfere with thyroxine availability, highlighting a novel role for the stomach in the following intestinal T4 absorption. Distinctive dissolution profiles of different T4 prepara...