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Partial deficiency of adrenal 11-hydroxylase: A possible cause of primary hypertension
No full textResults of supraphysiological adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) stimulation of biosynthetic pathways of adrenal zona fasciculata indicate that a deficiency of 11-hydroxylase exists in patients with essential hypertension. The deficiency is suggested by the much greater stimulus of synthesis of deoxycorticosterone (DOC) and deoxycortisol in hypertensive subjects than in controls (p < 0.001). No significant difference in the synthesis of cortisol, corticosterone, progesterone, 17-hydroxyprogesterone (17-OHP), and delta-4-androstenedione (D4) was observed between the two groups. The ratios for synthesis of DOC and corticosterone and for deoxycortisol and cortisol found in hypertensive patients were significantly higher than those found in controls (p < 0.001); no significant difference was observed in the synthesis of 17-OHP and progesterone. The synthesis of DOC and deoxycortisol was not significantly correlated with either blood pressure or plasma renin activity. Plasma renin activity was significantly lower in hypertensive subjects than in normotensive subjects (p < 0.0001), while no difference was found in aldosterone secretion between the two groups. The 11-hydroxylase deficiency in the adrenal zona fasciculata may be one of the genetic factors causing hypertension together with environmental factors (particularly salt intake and work-related stress). The investigation performed in our study may be useful for the evaluation of adrenal zona fasciculata enzymatic activities during the study of hypertensive patients
Long-term growth hormone deficiency as a cause of cardiomyopathy and its reversibility with specific replacement therapy
No full textThe current case report provides additional, and hopefully convincing, evidence in terms of cause and effect relation of GH deficiency to cardiomyopathy. In line with previous reports (16,17), our data highlight the rapid improvement of cardiac function after specific treatment. It would be interesting to determine whether GH therapy for longer than 3 months results in a more complete reversal of cardiac disease. The treatment period was necessarily short in our patient because we were also interested in the consequences of GH therapy discontinuation, which could provide an additional element to support the specificity of cardiomyopathy. Indeed, our observation of a rapid worsening of cardiac function after GH withdrawal substantiates the specificity of the disease and indicates that long term substitutive treatment is imperative in GH-deficient patients with evidence of cardiac failure. This recommendation is also supported by the epidemiological finding of increased cardiovascular mortality in GH-deficient patients, explained by their greater propensity to develop coronary artery disease and heart failure
Effect of a combination of ethinylestradiol and desogestrel in adolescents with oligomenorrhea and ovarian hyperandrogenism
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Unusual association of thyroiditis, Addison's disease, ovarian failure and celiac disease in a young woman
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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
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