Endocrine Abstracts

Background: The general population trend shows an increase in the elderly. The most affected systems in the aging process are the endocrine and cardiovascular systems. The cardiovascular conditions are very important among the diseases of the elderly, the mortality due to cardiovascular diseases holding the first place in geriatrics.

The aim of the study is to determine the peculiar aspect of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate secretion dynamics in the elderly and correlate this hormonal parameter with the cardiovascular diseases, in order to realize ways to improve the early diagnosis of these patients.

Material and methods: The study group consists of 135 subjects aged over 65 years old divided in two subsets: the control subset comprising 66 healthy elderly and the subset of elderly diagnosed with various cardiovascular diseases (69 patients). The cases were investigated by clinical and paraclinic examination and the results were statistically processed.

Results: Serum dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate values in the subjects aged over 65 years old were normal, situated in the lower of the normal range. The patients with cardiovascular diseases showed a less DHEA-s average by about 50% compared to the one in the healthy subjects.

Conclusions: Healthy subjects have shown a decreasing trend in the DHEA-S levels with their aging. Diseases such as arterial hypertension, coronary ischemic heart disease, heart failure and atrial fibrillation might influence the DHEA-S secretion. The altered serum DHEA-S levels could become predictive factors for cardiovascular diseases.

Key words:DHEA-S, elderly, cardiovascular diseases.

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.