Endocrine Abstracts

Vitamin D deficiency and osteomalacia continue to cause significant morbidity in Bradford. Outpatient attendance suggests this condition remains widespread. Poor awareness of this preventable and treatable condition exists. This audit was undertaken to highlight the frequency of normal biochemistry in patients with osteomalacia / vitamin D deficiency. Fifty-five patients (4M, 51F; 51 Asian, 4 Caucasian) were identified from our departmental computerised endocrine database. 25-...

Objective: HMG Coenzyme A reductase inhibitors (statins) mainly decrease low-density lipoproteins (LDL) cholesterol but also have been found to have beneficial effects in the skeleton. The aim of this study was to examine atorvastatin effects in vivo on femoral and vertebral bone strength.Methods: An ovariectomized (OVX), a glucocorticoid induced osteoporotic (GIO) and an OVX plus GIO group of rat models were used to study the effects of atorvastatin. Sp...

Objective: Human growth hormone (hGH) stimulates bone formation and have been proposed as therapeutic agents for osteoporosis. We have examined the effects of hGH on femoral and vertebral bone strength in osteoporotic rats.Methods: Thirty-five Sprague-Dawley rats were assigned to study in three groups: (1) Normal rats (without ovariectomy and corticosteroid therapy) (2) Osteoporosis group: ovariectomized (OVX) or with glucocorticoid induced osteoporotic ...

Bone turnover decreases markedly following both oral glucose and feeding. The mechanism for this is unclear. The aim of this study was to examine whether insulin itself could be responsible for the effect of feeding. We examined the acute effect of a hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp (E) and stepwise hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemic clamp (H) on bone turnover and PTH. Sixteen healthy male volunteers (mean age 22) attended on two occasions at 0800 after an overnight fast. The stud...

Background: Glucocorticoid (GC) induced growth retardation is partly due to effects on the growth plate but may vary depending on the pattern of GC exposure.Aims: To compare the effects of dexamethasone (Dex) and prednisolone (Pred) and timing of GC exposure on chondrocyte proliferation and terminal differentiation on the ATDC5 murine chondrocyte cell line.Methods: The cell line was fully characterized by assessing marker gene expr...