1,721,038 research outputs found
Editorial: Effects of pharmacologic therapy for diabetes mellitus on the endocrine system
No full textAmong non-communicable diseases, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is significantly increasing not only in the western populations but also in those from East and South Asian countries such as China and India. Therefore, its macrovascular (i.e. cardiovascular) and microvascular damages are expected to rise worldwide, with a significant increase in social and economic burden of diabetes. In those diabetic patients not achieving therapeutic targets by means of lifestyle measures, pharmacologic therapy must be considered. Interestingly, the new glucoselowering agents - in particular glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RA) and sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2-i) - have been associated with a number of extra-glycaemic effects, including cardiovascular benefits, nephron protection, and weight loss, reducing both morbidity and mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes and substantially improving the clinical management of this condition. This still limited body of work indicates a potential great interest in the extra-glycaemic actions of these new classes of antidiabetic drugs, particularly on the endocrine system. It can be expected that in the next years the choice of the pharmacological treatments for subjects with type 2 diabetes will be increasingly done not only according to HbA1C targets, costs, and potential side effects, but also for the capacity of drugs to prevent and/or treat organ damage, including in this concept both classical and nonclassical targets (i.e. kidney, heart, bone, testis, etc.). Nevertheless, further studies are required to clarify the relationships between antidiabetic drugs action and effects on these targets, independently of glucose control
Iodine-131 lung uptake in bronchiectasis: a potential pitfall in the follow up of differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC).
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Androgens, Body Composition, and Their Metabolism Based on Sex
No full textDifferences between males and females are commonly attributed to sexual hormones. Androgens are
responsible for the development of primary and secondary sexual characteristics in males, whereas they
influence sexual behaviour, glycaemic control, lipid profile, bone metabolism and erythropoiesis in both
sexes. In this chapter, we discuss preclinical and clinical data on sex-specific androgen metabolism and
androgen effect on body composition
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Zenker diverticulum: A potential pitfall in thyroid ultrasound evaluation: A case report and systematic review of literature
No full textBackground and Objective: Zenker Diverticulum (ZD) can sometimes be misinterpreted as a thyroid nodule both at clinical evaluation and at Ultrasound (US). Case Presentation: We reported the case of a 46-years-old woman complaining of a lump in the anterior left aspect of the neck. Following clinical examination and US evaluation, a thyroid nodule was initially diagnosed and the patient was referred to our institution to be submitted to a fine-needle aspiration cytology. Management and Outcome: A ZD was suspected by US and diagnosed by gastrografin esophagram, thus an endoscopic diverticulotomy was requested. Conclusion: A correct US evaluation can be crucial for the appropriate management of a neck mass
Low dehydroepiandrosterone circulating levels in premenopausal obese women with very high body mass index
No full textDehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) has an anti-obesity effect in rodents and reduces body fat in normal men. Therefore, the plasma levels of DHEA were evaluated in nine premenopausal healthy women and in 13 menstrually active nondiabetic obese women, including patients (n = 6) with body mass index (BMI) over 40. In the obese group, a significant inverse correlation between DHEA levels and BMI was found. These results suggest that patients with severe obesity are unable to increase the DHEA adrenal production rate in order to parallel the increase in the hormone metabolic clearance rate (due to enlargement of body fat mass per se). The deficiency of this mechanism might itself contribute to the progressive fat accumulation in severe obesity
Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate in obese women
No full textSevere obesity is known to reduce either dehydroepiandrosterone circulating levels or growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) secretion. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the possibility of a relationship between the circulating levels of IGF-1 and those of dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEAS) in 25 fertile obese women. A logarithmic transformation of the values of non-normally distributed variables was performed before statistical analysis. We found a significant positive correlation between DHEAS and IGF-1 (r = 0.615, P < 0.01). In addition, stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that IGF-1 maintained a strong positive relationship with DHEAS (P < 0.01) when adjusted for other variables such as age, body mass index (BMI), waist:hip ratio (WHR) and insulin levels (adjusted R2 = 0.373; P < 0.01). These findings suggest that IGF-1 may independently influence the DHEAS circulating levels. ADG (5 alpha-androstan-3 alpha, 17 beta-diol-glucuronide) was also positively correlated to IGF-1 (r = 0.436, P < 0.05). However, when ADG concentrations were adjusted for DHEAS levels, this metabolite was not significantly correlated with IGF-1, thus excluding a direct influence of IGF-1 on the 5-alpha-reductase activity. Therefore, although our data represent only a preliminary study, they seem to suggest a possible influence of IGF-1 on circulating levels of DHEAS in obese women
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