Endocrine Abstracts

A 64-year-old female presented to the acute medical take with hypercalcaemia. She had a 3 weeks history of polyuria, polydipsia, constipation, intermittent abdominal pain and feeling depressed. She reported weight loss of 3.5 kg over the past 6 months. She denied symptoms of dysphagia, dyspnoea, haemoptysis, haematemesis, or malaena. Her past medical history included anaemia, ischaemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and uterine prolapse. She was an ex-smo...

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the commonest endocrine disorder in women of reproductive age. It is characterised by excessive ovarian androgen production which, in turn, has been implicated in the aetiology of aberrant follicular development. We have previously reported that prenatal exposure to androgens activates follicle growth1. It has been suggested that androgens may interact with the IGFs to promote the activation and growth of follicles. The aim of thi...

Introduction: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are a type of multipotent cells readily found within the bone marrow, capable of undergoing self-renewal and giving rise to cells with different characteristics, such as, osteoblasts, adipocytes and chondrocytes. MSC differentiation requires optimal cell–matrix interaction and is also dependent on a number of growth factors.Aim: To investigate the effect of GH, Rho-associated kinase (ROCK) and extracellula...

A 73 years old gentleman with a diagnosis of mesothelioma presented with symptoms typical of hypoglycaemia. Other than the expected abnormal chest signs there were no significant examination findings.Capillary glucose was unrecordable; lab testing confirmed serum glucose of 0.9 mmol/l. He had no history of diabetes mellitus or any medication that may induce hypoglycaemia. There was a slight rise in CRP and white cell count was elevated. There was no clin...

We report two cases with initial presentation of sudden onset ophthalmoplegia in i) a patient recently diagnosed with breast carcinoma and ii) a patient subsequently diagnosed with carcinoma lung. The first patient (68 years) was referred to the tertiary endocrine unit with a 2 weeks history of visual loss associated with 3rd cranial nerve palsy in her right eye and with a temporal hemianopia in her left eye. MRI showed an enhancing sellar and suprasellar mass. Initial biochem...

We previously showed acute hypoxic conditions result in atrophy of myotubes in vitro. Chronic hypoxic exposure in vivo induces muscular atrophy in healthy mountaineering individuals and patients with COPD. Myotubes in vitro increase myostatin expression in response to hypoxic exposure. Further, hypoxic COPD patients show cachexia and increased serum myostatin expression. However, in vivo results are cofounded by disease factors in COPD patie...

GnRH is secreted in pulses and its effects on pituitary gonadotropes depend on pulse frequency. This is crucial for physiological control and therapeutic manipulation of the system (in IVF and treatment of hormone-dependent cancers) but GnRH pulse frequency decoding mechanisms are unknown. The simplest form of frequency dependence is a linear relationship between integrated inputs and outputs but such ‘integrative tracking’ cannot explain the bell-shaped frequency-re...

Introduction: Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) affects 0.3% of the population. It is characterised by hypercalcaemia with an inappropriately high parathyroid hormone level. The majority of patients with primary hyperparathyroidism are asymptomatic and are diagnosed following an incidental finding of hypercalcaemia. Symptomatic disease is related to hypercalcaemia and can present with complications such as renal calculi and osteoporosis. Parathyroidectomy is the treatment of ...

Ingested protein has a greater satiating effect than other macronutrients. The underlying mechanism is unknown, but it has been shown that protein induces greater increases in anorectic gut hormone levels than carbohydrate or fat. It was hypothesised that these effects could be mediated by specific amino acids comprising the protein. We therefore examined the effects of specific amino acids on food intake and gut hormone release. Fasted male Wistar rats received an oral gavage...

The preproglucagon derived peptides glucagon, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and oxyntomodulin are all known to inhibit appetite and have been previously shown to activate the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS) in the brainstem. The NTS is involved in the processing of signals transmitted from the periphery to the brain via the vagus nerve. The anorectic effects of peripherally administered glucagon and GLP-1 have been shown to be diminished or ablated by subdiaphragmatic vagot...