Endocrine Abstracts

Diabetes mellitus like all chronic illnesses requires lifelong management (self or guided) with regular health professional support and supervision. Non-attendance at outpatient clinics (OPD) is a common cause of inefficiency in our current health care system causing undue wastage of clinician time and resources and potentially lengthening waiting times.Aim: The aim of our pilot project was to improve our diabetes OPD from the current attendance of 78% t...

Bartter’s syndrome (BS) and Gitelman’s syndrome (GS) are renal tubular disorders affecting reabsorption of sodium, potassium and chloride. Common clinical features include muscle cramps and weakness, hypokalaemia, hypochloraemic metabolic alkalosis and elevated plasma aldosterone concentrations. Urinary calcium excretion and plasma magnesium concentrations may be differentiating features, such that hypomagnesaemia and hypocalciuria are typical of GS, and hypercalciur...

Background: Benign adrenal tumours are discovered in 3-10% of adults and can be non-functioning (NFAT) or associated with adrenal hormone excess, most frequently mild autonomous cortisol secretion (MACS) defined by the failure to suppress cortisol after 1 mg dexamethasone overnight but lack of distinct signs of Cushing’s syndrome (CS). We found that MACS increases the prevalence and severity of type 2 diabetes and hypertension and primarily affects women (Ann Int Med. 202...

11-oxygenated androgens are a group of adrenal-derived C19 steroids that require activation in peripheral tissues. 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 (HSD11B2) has been shown in vitro to be essential for 11-oxygenated androgen activation, converting 11β-hydroxyandrostenedione (11OHA4) to 11-ketoandrostenedione (11KA4), the direct precursor of the potent androgen 11-ketotestosterone (11KT). As the kidney is the major site of HSD11B2 expression, we hypoth...