Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality is increased in Graves’ disease (GD) even years after initial diagnosis and treatment. The mechanisms are incompletely understood. Vitamin D insufficiency is associated with an increased risk of CVD and has been reported to occur frequently in GD. Pulse wave velocity (PWV) and blood pressure (BP) are important predictors of CVD. We performed a clinical trial, testing whether vitamin D supplementation affects P...

Objectives: Quality of life (QoL) is severely affected in Graves’ disease (GD) but long-term longitudinal assessment of QoL is lacking. Furthermore, whether QoL is comparable to controls after treatment of GD is unclear. For the first time, we present serial, longitudinal data on thyroid-related QoL during 24 months of follow-up in a cohort of newly diagnosed GD patients. In addition, we compare QoL in GD and controls.Methods: All patients were tre...

Objective: Physiological alterations challenge the assessment of maternal thyroid function in pregnancy. It remains uncertain how the reference ranges vary by week of pregnancy, and how the classification of maternal thyroid disease vary by analytical method and type of thyroid function test.Method: Consecutively collectedserum samples from 6.282 pregnant women in the North Denmark Region, 2011–2013, were used for the measurement of thyrotropin (TS...

Background: High levels of mannose-binding lectin (MBL), an activator of complement, have been associated with increased mortality and risk of albuminuria in patients with type 2 diabetes. It is not known if MBL is synthesized in human adipose tissue and the effects of weight loss and changes in insulin sensitivity on MBL levels have been poorly elucidated.Methods: Of 36 nondiabetic obese subjects received a very low-calorie diet (VLCD) of 800 kcal/day f...

Background: Prolactin is associated with metabolic risk inside and outside of pregnancy. Maternal prolactin levels could be associated with offspring body composition.Aim: To investigate if maternal prolactin-levels were linked to offspring body composition at seven years of age.Design: Prospective observational cohort study (the Odense Child Cohort).Methods: Maternal fasting blood samples were assessed durin...

Significant knowledge gaps exist regarding the humanistic effects of hypoparathyroidism, a rare, debilitating disorder. We report results from a global survey to characterise the burden of hypoparathyroidism from the patient perspective. An anonymous survey was conducted in patients with uncontrolled chronic hypoparathyroidism (as determined by patients’ report of persistent symptoms and/or poorly controlled calcium levels as told by their physician) despite receiving con...

Introduction: Phthalates are suspected to influence thyroid function in epidemiologic and experimental animal studies. The aim of the study was to investigate the ability of primary human thyroid cell cultures to metabolise phthalates and a possible concentration-dependent response of phthalates on thyroglobulin (Tg) secretion.Methods: Human thyrocytes obtained from thyroidectomies were cultured to confluent monolayers. These were exposed to DEHP in conc...

Although chronic hypoparathyroidism is known to negatively affect health-related quality of life (HRQoL), burden of illness is less well defined in patients whose disease is not adequately controlled on conventional therapy. We report burden of illness for the European subset of a patient survey in 13 countries globally. 398 adults with chronic hypoparathyroidism not adequately controlled on conventional therapy (recruited by treating physician or patient association) complete...

Non-invasive methods to measure enzyme activity in vivo can provide a useful tool for the development of selective inhibitors. Tissue-specific dysregulation of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 1 (11β-HSD1), a reductase enzyme that amplifies active intracellular glucocorticoid levels, has been shown in obese patients using invasive tools (biopsy, microdialysis and arteriovenous sampling with stable isotope tracers). 11β-HSD1 inhibitors are efficacious in...

Objective: The short-term cardiovascular effects of continuous ghrelin infusion in healthy humans remain to be studied.Methods: Fifteen healthy, young and normal-weight men volunteered to participate in a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over study. The local ethics committee approved the study. We used a constant infusion of human ghrelin at a rate of 5 pmol/kg body weight per minute for 180 minutes and measured peak left ventricular my...