Endocrine Abstracts

With the increasing use of thyroid ultrasound (US), the recognition of thyroid nodules in a large proportion of apparently healthy subjects has become common. Moreover, some autopsy series have shown that papillary cancer measuring 10 mm or less, the so-called papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC), is a very frequent incidental finding. Because PTMC is being increasingly discovered, it is important to ascertain whether PTMC may exhibit heterogenous clinical and pathological ...

Background: The balance between Adrenergic Receptor (AR) subtypes and Atrial Natriuretic Peptide (ANP) is crucial for lipolysis. It was previously demonstrated that ANP is strongly lipolytic and we recently demonstrated that ANP is expressed and secreted by human pre-adipocytes. In previous studies, β-receptor density and lipolysis were higher in human visceral adipose tissue (HVAT) as compared with human subcutaneous adipose tissue (HSAT).Aims and ...

Autoimmune thyroiditis is a common disease with different clinical aspects. It has not been established whether a rapid cellular destruction, with evolution towards hypothyroidism, may be associated with specific clinical phenotypes. To clarify this point, we studied 386 consecutive patients affected by autoimmune thyroiditis diagnosed within the previous 3 years: 193 patients (170 female and 23 males, age range 57.5±12.8, Group 1) were treated with L-thyro...

Hepatocytes are both insulin sensitive and the primary site for synthesis of SHBG. Thus, it is possible that a condition of hepatic insulin resistance may impair hepatic synthesis of SHBG. In this study, we assessed SHBG circulating levels after 30 days of a very low-calorie ketogenic diet (VLCKD) based on high-biological value protein preparations diet (ISOMED) and natural food in a cohort of insulin-resistant obese male subjects. Moreover, we investigated the effects of expo...

RT-coding genes are expressed at very low levels in differentiated, non pathological tissues, while are significantly up-regulated in undifferentiated and transformed cells, suggesting a direct correlation between the level of expression of RT and the proliferative state of the cell. Either nevirapine and efavirenz, two RT inhibitors, used in the therapy of AIDS, reversibly down-regulate cell proliferation and induce differentiation in several human tumor cell lines.<p cla...

Insulin is a major endocrine hormone able to regulate whole-body energy disposal and lipid metabolism. Particularly, insulin stimulates the renewal of the adipose tissue (AT) via activation of insulin receptors (IR) consisting of two splicing variants: a short isoform (IRa) involved in cell proliferation, and a long isoform (IRb) mainly implicated in metabolic responses. The contribution of these isoforms to the AT expansion is still poorly understood. We investigated the expr...

Low levels of testosterone and SHBG levels are often present in subjects with overweight and obesity; functional hypogonadism further alters the metabolic balance and may drag subjects in a sort of vicious cycle, reducing exercise and energy expenditure. The very low-calorie ketogenic diet (VLCKD) has been reported to rapidly reduce body weight, glycaemia and insulinemia, but its effects on total testosterone (TT) and SHBG levels are less clear. We thus aimed to evaluate the r...