Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Vitamin D deficiency in pregnancy is a growing public concern amongst ethnic minority groups in the UK. This is related to both skin colour and clothing.Aim: To investigate vitamin D status in four ethnic groups in an inner city obstetric practice. This was part of an ongoing study of vitamin D deficiency and supplementation in pregnancy.Subjects: Women from St Mary’s Hospital, London were recruited at 28 weeks ges...

A 23-year-old Rwandan lady was 27 weeks pregnant and reported feeling non-specifically unwell for 3 days followed by 24 h of diarrhoea and vomiting. She denied fever, rash, polyuria, polydipsia, weight loss or foreign travel. She has sickle cell trait with no other past medical history. Laboratory glucose at 16 weeks gestation was 5.1 mmol/l.On admission she looked unwell and was tachycardic and dehydrated. Her capillary blood glucose was 17.9 mmol/l and...

A 52 year old lady was admitted with collapse in May 2001 with h/o being nauseous, generally unwell, off her feet and food for several weeks. GP consultation five weeks before, for similar complaints, resulted in thyroid function tests confirming hypothyroidism. Thyroxine 25 mcg was commenced by the GP and uptitrated to 50 mcg. She however deteriorated despite this treatment becoming increasingly lethargic and sleepy. On admission she appeared tanned, BP was 93/50 she was dysa...

The expression of GHSR, an endogenous Ghrelin receptor, has been reported in pituitary, but the levels of expression of this receptor are low and the role of the GHSR in the normal physiology to directly affect GH or Prolactin release in pituitary remains unclear. We used a line of GH-GHSR transgenic mice to analyse the effects of hGHSR over-expression in the pituitary GH cells. We also crossed these mice with GH-GFP transgenic mice with fluorescent somatotrophs.<p class="...

Animal and clinical models of GHRH excess suggest that GHRH provides an important trophic drive to pituitary somatotrophs. Mice in which GHRH neurons have been ablated using a novel viral ion channel transgene (GHRH-M2 mice) show marked anterior pituitary hypoplasia and GH deficiency although GH cells are present. GHRH-M2 mice are also deficient in prolactin which is surprising as GHRH has little or no direct effect on PRL synthesis or release (Le Tissier, Mol Endo 19). In mic...

VEGF is an endothelial-cell specific mitogen and is a critical regulator of developmental and reproductive angiogenesis. VEGF165 is the most abundant isoform, with the N-terminal 110 aa domain containing the receptor binding site and the C-terminal 55 aa domain containing a heparin-binding site. The activity of the molecule is mediated through its interaction with two main receptors, VEGFR-1 and VEGFR-2, the binding to which is modulated by both cell surface-associated glycosa...

Prenatal manipulations in animal models result in lifelong alterations in the stress responsivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPAA). While several human studies have found raised 0900h cortisol concentrations in low birthweight individuals, twenty-four hour cortisol profiles do not vary according to birthweight (a marker of adverse antenatal exposures). One explanation for this dichotomy is that 0900h cortisol concentration measured in a novel clinic setting ma...

Objectives: The extent and mechanisms of the diurnal variation in insulin sensitivity are poorly described. This study set out to assess the relative contributions of diurnal rhythm and length of fast to insulin sensitivity in normal healthy human subjects.Methods: Nine healthy women (age 25.3±1.2 years, BMI 22.4±0.8 Kg/m2) ate a standardised meal before each of the four fasts, two ten-hour fasts ending at 0900 and 1700 and two thirteen-hou...

A nineteen-year-old primiparous lady was admitted in her 40th week of gestation with irregular painful contractions. Following a prolonged labour (approx. eighteen hours) she underwent an emergency caesarean section because of decelerations in the foetal heartbeat and meconium staining of her liquor. At a vaginal examination performed pre caesarean to assess the state of her cervix, her clitoris was noted to be enlarged. She delivered a healthy girl who was not virilised. Befo...

Testicular cancer has a peak incidence in young men between the ages of 15 and 40, with an increased frequency in individuals with disorders of the reproductive tract such as hypospadia and cryptorchidism. It has been proposed that carcinoma in situ cells are derived from testicular germ cells that have not differentiated appropriately during fetal life, perhaps as a result of disturbance of the hormonal environment. The aim of this study is to investigate whether estrogen may...