Endocrine Abstracts

The hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis plays a key role in the metabolic response to stress, so it is to be anticipated that cortisol signalling might in turn be regulated by nutritional status. This regulation might operate either centrally, controlling ACTH and hence plasma cortisol, or peripherally, controlling metabolism of cortisol in target tissues.Plasma cortisol levels are elevated during starvation in animals and a recent meta-analysis co...

Subclinical Cushing’s syndrome, defined as evidence of alterations of the HPA axis in patients without stigmata of hypercortisolism, is a frequent finding among patients with adrenal incidentalomas. It is well-known that this condition is associated with several co-morbidities, such as hypertension in 2/3 of the cases, diabetes in 1/3, and dyslipidemia, which impair the cardiovascular risk profile of those patients. Recently, different independent reports on the natural h...

11β-hydoxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11β-HSD1) essentially catalyzes the conversion of the inactive endogenous glucocorticoid cortisone (11-dehydrocorticosterone in rodents) and the synthetic prednisone into the active cortisol (corticosterone in rodents) and prednisolone. The association of an elevated expression of 11β-HSD1 with metabolic disease has been extensively studied in humans and in rodent models. It is generally assumed that the effects that are o...