Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Several studies suggested a direct relationship between metabolic syndrome (MetS) and increased risk of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). An inflammatory component, mainly mediated by IL-8, has been proposed as the primary link between MetS and BPH pathogenesis. MetS, is often associated with testosterone (T) deficiency and an imbalance between the androgen and estrogen ratio characterizes BPH patients.Methods: We investigated the effects...

Introduction: Adipose tissue dysfunction is associated to metabolic syndrome (MetS), a clustering of cardio-metaboilic risk factors, including hypogonadism. We recently demonstrated that T supplementation was able to ameliorate the metabolic profile and reduce visceral fat accumulation in high-fat diet (HFD)-induced rabbit model of MetS.Methods: We evaluated the differentiation capacity of preadipocytes (rPAD) obtained from visceral fat of the following ...

Introduction: Elevated levels of cortisol are known to induce a wide range of pathology, e.g. abdominal obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Measuring serum and saliva cortisol is limited to one time point. Measurement of cortisol in scalp hair is a recently developed method to measure long term cortisol levels and might reflect cortisol exposure in patients with hyper- or hypo-cortisolism and in healthy persons. Our aims were to explore this measurement of cor...

Introduction: Cigarette smoking is one of the most serious substance abuse problems. It is generally accepted that nicotine and other chemicals in tobacco smoke alter endocrine function in women, induce changes in female hormonal balance and likely contributes to reported associations of smoking with adverse reproductive outcomes, including menstrual dysfunction, infertility, and earlier menopause. Studies on the effects of smoking and smoking cessation on female sex hormones ...

Introduction: Local androgen synthesis in prostate cancer (PC) could contribute to the development of castration-resistant PC (CRPC). Pathways controlling intratumoral steroidogenic enzyme expression in PC are unknown. Since activin has been implicated in regulation of PC growth and steroidogenic enzyme expression in other steroidogenic tissues, we investigated the effect of activin on intratumoral steroidogenesis in PC.Methods: Activin A effects and reg...

Mass spectrometry based clinical metabolomics needs standardization of analytical assays to improve future inter-laboratory comparability and to become a successful new and established technology in clinical routine laboratories such as mass spectrometry based therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) over the past 10 years. Steroid hormones are one of the most interesting endogenous metabolite class in clinical metabolomics today. Standardized determination of concentrations of stero...

Context: In population and psychosocial studies, saliva becomes increasingly popular, mainly due to its non-invasive collection methods and availability of free hormone fractions. However, few studies have evaluated the impact of collection devices on steroid hormone analysis; and none with the currently used methods.Objective: The aim of this pilot study was to minimize pre-analytical errors based on sample collection methods.Meth...

Introduction: Autoimmune disease (AD) is more common in women than in men. Sex hormones may play a role. Sex hormone receptors (SHR) are expressed in cells of the autoimmune system. We investigated the possible role of hormonal parameters and of common gene polymorphisms of the estrogen receptor alpha (ESR1), beta (ESR2) and androgen receptor (AR) in the presence of AD in men.Methods: In total 227 men were studied; 125 had at least o...

Local glucocorticoids action depends on 11β hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11β-HSD) enzymes. Adipose tissues mainly express the 11β-HSD1, which activates inactive cortisone. Altered 11β-HSD1 and GLUT4 expressions have been reported in obesity. GLUT4 participates in the genesis and maintenance of insulin resistance/obesity, and could also be involved in the insulin resistant state observed in hypercortisolism. The aim of this study was to investigate the 11&#...

Introduction: Insulin resistance results from a combination of genetic and environmental factors and it may be considered the primary cause of the development of metabolic disorders, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus. It is characterized by a reduced ability of insulin sensitivity tissues to respond to normal levels of the hormone. In these tissues, glucose transport stimulated by insulin occurs through the glucose transporter 4 and alterations in its expression are related to ...