Endocrine Abstracts

Keith Parker, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA AbstractThe son of two clinician-scientists, Keith Parker attended Williams College, and then received his M.D./Ph.D. degrees from Washington University School of Medicine in 1981. His graduate work with Donald Shreffler focused on structure-function relationships of the complement component, C4....

A 23 year-old male was assessed for recommencement of growth hormone replacement therapy. He had discontinued treatment a year ago but not experienced any adverse symptoms since.The patient had been born with multiple congenital malformations. Midline defects included oesophageal atresia, imperforate anus and partial sacral agenesis. Urogenital abnormalities required a left nephro-ureterectomy soon after birth and an orchidopexy was performed at the age ...

Recruitment to research studies to meet sample quality, size, and power requirements may be challenging, with underrepresentation of specific gender, age or ethnic groups being a common source of bias within research. Social media are defined as web-based applications that enable creation and exchange of user generated content. Facebook, one of the most renowned social networking interfaces currently has 1.44 billion users worldwide, and cross-sectional studies of user demogra...

The orphan nuclear receptor steroidogenic factor 1 (SF-1) initially wasisolated as a key regulator of the cytochrome P450 steroid hydroxylases.Knockout mice lacking steroidogenic factor 1 (SF-1) have a complexendocrine phenotype that encompasses adrenal and gonadal agenesis,impaired expression of gonadotropins by pituitary gonadotropes, andstructural abnormalities of the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus (VMH).These multiple defects complicate efforts t...

Nuclear receptors regulate many developmental processes and a vast array of physiological responses. They control the expression of subsets of specific genes by recruiting co-factors that can function either as co-activators or co-repressors to either stimulate or repress gene transcription. Using the ligand-binding domain of the estrogen receptor as bait we identified a receptor interacting protein of MW 140Kd that we called RIP140. Examination of RIP140 null mice showed two ...

Dietary fat has been correlated with obesity since it induces the proliferation and differentiation of pre-adipocytes. However it has become clear that the effect of fat on human health depends on the composition and the nature of fatty acids. Arachidonic acid (AA) is a major omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) with a controversial role in adipocyte differentiation. We investigated the effect of a brief AA exposure on pre-adipocyte differentiation. We show that a short t...

Dietary fat has been correlated with obesity since it induces the proliferation and differentiation of pre-adipocytes. Now it has become clear that the effect of fat on human health depends on the composition and the nature of fatty acids. Arachidonic acid (AA) is a major omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) with a controversial role in adipocyte differentiation. We investigated the effect on pre-adipocyte differentiation after a brief exposure to AA.<p class="abstext...

Background: We describe a 64-year-old lady with past medical history of Thalassaemia Trait and Hypertension, who was presented with Cushing’s syndrome.Clinical presentation: This patient was admitted with severe bi-basal pneumonia in February 2010 and treated successfully. But unfortunately her symptoms persisted with increasing facial swelling in end of May 2010, therefore, a staging CT was arranged and found incidental 6×5 cm left adrenal mas...

Introduction and aim: Long-term unemployment leads to poorer health and increased inequalities. The Welfare Reform Bill, published on 14 January 2009, supports the progression back to work for incapacity benefit claimants.Due to the chronic nature of endocrine conditions, affected patients may be at an increased risk of long-term unemployment. We do not currently hold data describing the unemployment or return to work rate for this group. Our aim is to d...

A 51-year-old asymptomatic man presented in 1998 with elevated thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) 6.34 mIU/l (0.34–5.6 mIU/l), FT4 54.1 pmol/l (7.5–21.1 pmol/l), FT3 20.1 pmol/l (3.0–5.0 pmol/l) and TSH-α subunits 3.6 mcg/l (<2.0 mcg/l). After the first visit, he was lost to follow-up.He presented 10 years later in 2008 with 1-week history of symptoms of heart failure and hyperthyroidism. Clinically he was thy...