Endocrine Abstracts

Cushing’s disease (CD) and Ectopic ACTH syndrome (EAS) stem from excess circulating adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and resulting hypercortisolemia. In CD, excess ACTH is secreted from pituitary tumors, whereas excess ACTH in EAS arises from nonpituitary tumors. ACTH acts on the adrenal melanocortin type 2 (MC2) receptor to control the synthesis and secretion of adrenal hormones, including the stress hormone cortisol (corticosterone in rats) which accounts for the com...

Experimental autoimmune thyroiditis (EAT) has been used to simulate human autoimmune thyroid disease for decades. EAT can be easily induced in genetically susceptible strains of mice by excess iodine ingestion or by immunization with mouse thyroglobulin. Excess iodine may induce and exacerbate autoimmune thyroiditis (AIT) in humans and animal models. In order to assess the potential protective mechanisms of selenium (Se) in thyroid autoimmunity, we evaluated the effects of ino...

Introduction: The majority of adrenal neoplasms are benign while adrenocortical carcinomas (ACC) are rare with poor prognosis. Previous studies indicated that estrogens play important role in the etiology and progression of adrenocortical tumors. Estrogens exert genomic activities trough the estrogen-receptor (ER) subtypes α and β, while the non-genomic effects are mediated by membrane-bound-G-protein-coupled-ER-30 (GPR30). Although estrogens induce cancer cell ...

Background: In recent years, the role of vitamin D in improving the profile of inflammatory markers in order to prevent and treat diabetic neuropathy and microcirculation disorders has been actively studied.Aims: The research goal was to study the dynamics of inflammatory markers, clinical manifestations of diabetic peripheral neuropathy and laser Doppler flowmetry of skin microcirculation during treatment with various doses of cholecalciferol in patient...

Background: Hypoparathyroidism (HP) is characterized by low serum calcium (sCa) and high serum phosphate (sP). Standard of care (SoC), active vitamin D and calcium, raises sCa and sP and increases burden of illness on HP patients by worsening hypercalciuria and the CaxP product. Parathyroid hormone (PTH)(1–84)(t1/2 ~2–3 hrs) is approved and can raise sCa and allow partial withdrawal of SoC, but does not sufficiently control urine calcium or symptoma...

Background: The pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is associated with higher fatality in respect of male sex, advancing age, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, climatic factors and, in the UK and North America, with darker-skinned ethnicities; in all of which circumstances vitamin D deficiency (VDD) is more common. 25(OH)D levels reach their nadir at the end of winter and have been associated wit...

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), may lead to a severe acute respiratory syndrome requiring hospitalization and assisted ventilation with high lethality. Replication of SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and Ebolavirus is calcium-dependent and hypocalcemia has been frequently reported in all these infections. Despite already many studies reporting on clinical and laboratory presentation of COVID-19 patients, including inflammatory and organ injury biomarkers, only one case report has so fa...