Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Narcolepsy is a rare sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and REM-sleep abnormalities. Lateral hypothalamic hypocretin/orexin neurones are critical for normal wakefulness and energy expenditure, and the reduction of their activity has been linked with narcolepsy. Their activity is inhibited by extracellular glucose and the ‘satiety’ hormone leptin but stimulated by the ’hunger’ hormone ghrelin. Patients with narcolepsy and cataplexy are often overweight and display an increased prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Because of possible ghrelin/adypocytokines disbalance, we assessed plasma ghrelin, leptin and adiponectin periferial levels.

Description of methods: Plasma ghrelin, leptin and adiponectin concentrations were measured in 25 narcoleptic patients with cataplexy (mean age 40.76± 13.81 years, mean BMI 26.44± 5.21) and 20 healthy age and BMI matched controls (mean age 41.25± 14.05, mean BMI 26.04± 3.94). Body composition was measured using bioimpedance method. Levels of parameters were measured by RIA (kits LINCO Research).

Results: There were no stastically siugnificant differencies in plasma ghrelin, leptin, and adiponectin concentrations between narcoleptic and healthy individuals. As expected there was a positive correlation between leptin levels and fat mass in patients with narcolepsy and cataplexy.

Conclusion: Our study suggests that possible metabolic changes and tendency to owerweight previously reported in narcolepsy with cataplexy may be caused by other mechanisms but not ghrelin/adypocitokines disbalance.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.