Endocrinology
Radioiodine Therapy: Managing Side Effects
|
|
“The best way to manage the adverse side effects of radioiodine therapy is to avoid the side effects by limiting radioiodine exposure,” says Stephanie L. Lee, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and director of the Endocrine Clinics and the Thyroid Disease Center, Boston Medical Center of the Boston Medical Center.
Dr Lee will make her presentation at the “Meet the Professor” session Friday September 25 at 10:15 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. during the American Thyroid Association’s (ATA) 80th Annual Meeting September 23-27, 2009, held at The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida.
Dr. Lee will present a case study, review the risks of radioiodine therapy in thyroid cancer including complications in a variety of the body’s systems, and how to prevent long-term complications.
Can Hormone Treatment Ease Post-Surgery Behavior Changes in Children?
|
|
A scary unknown for many children, the prospect of surgery can cause intense preoperative anxiety. While some amount of stress is normal, what many parents do not know is that extreme anxiety before surgery can contribute to the occurrence of emergence delirium, a distressing incidence of acute behavioral changes experienced when “waking up” from anesthesia.
Now in the July issue of Anesthesiology, physicians focused on reducing anxiety in children and their families report that oral treatment with melatonin before surgery can significantly reduce the occurrence of emergence delirium in children.
Affecting up to 20 percent of children who undergo surgery, emergence delirium in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) consists of acute behavior changes including crying, thrashing and need for restraint. According to researchers, this can also lead to the development of behavioral changes outside the recovery suite with the onset of nightmares, bed wetting and separation anxiety.
Hormone May Help Combat Frailty in Older Women
|
|
Frail elderly women with unexplained weight loss may benefit from supplementation with the body’s appetite-stimulating hormone, ghrelin, or with similar agents, according to a new study. Results of the study, which was funded partially by the National Institutes of Health, were presented at The Endocrine Society’s 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Unexplained weight loss is a common problem in older adults. It can lead to the development of frailty, a debilitating syndrome of declines across multiple body systems.
Frail individuals have much higher rates of functional decline, hospitalization and death than healthier people their age, said study lead investigator Anne Cappola, MD, ScM, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia.
Hormone therapy lowers colon cancer risk
|
|
Hormone replacement therapy may raise a woman’s risk of breast cancer and heart disease but it lowers her risk of colon cancer, according to two studies released on Wednesday.
The studies presented at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research further complicate the debate about HRT, used to relieve the effects of menopause including hot flashes and insomnia.
Millions of women stopped taking HRT when a Women’s Health Initiative study showed in 2002 that the hormones raised the risk of stroke, heart disease and breast cancer. Hardest hit was Wyeth’s Premarin, which is soon to be acquired by Pfizer Inc.
Growth hormone has benefits after obesity surgery
|
|
In morbidly obese patients who undergo weight loss or “bariatric” surgery, subsequent treatment with growth hormone (GH) for 6 months prevents the loss of lean body mass, researchers have found.
Dr. Silvia Savastano from University Federico II of Naples, Italy, and colleagues investigated the potential role of GH treatment in affecting body weight loss in 24 morbidly obese women who had a type of weight loss surgery called gastric banding, in which a large portion of the stomach is tied off, leaving only a small pouch.
The 12 patients treated with GH and those given placebo lost a similar amount of weight, the investigators found, but patients treated with GH had lower loss of lean body mass and higher loss of fat mass at 3 months.
Growth hormone stimulator may combat frailty
|
|
An experimental drug that stimulates the body to secrete growth hormone boosts lean muscle mass and physical function in older adults, perhaps combating physical weakness or “frailty,” according to results of a study.
As people age, the decline of growth hormone secretion in the body may play a role in the development of frailty, the debilitating loss of fat and muscle tissue.
In the study, 395 men and women aged 65 to 84 years with mild physical limitations were randomly assigned to placebo or one of four doses of Pfizer’s experimental growth hormone stimulator called capromorelin.
A total of 315 subjects completed 6 months of treatment and 284 completed 12 months. Based on these data, all four doses of capromorelin produced a sustained increase in insulin-like growth factor I—a hormone involved in growth and development.
Growth hormone treatment after weight loss surgery prevents loss of muscle mass
|
|
Growth hormone treatment for six months after weight loss surgery reduces patients’ losses in lean body mass and skeletal muscle mass, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).
Weight loss surgery techniques, such as gastric banding, have been shown to be effective in reducing body weight and obesity-related diseases, such as diabetes. Although the results of these procedures are widely beneficial, there are some complications. Following surgery, patients are at risk of losing needed lean body mass and skeletal muscle mass due to the serious complications associated with rapid and sustained weight loss. This new study investigated whether growth hormone treatment could prevent or reduce these losses.
“Besides its more commonly known effect on linear growth during childhood, growth hormone benefits body composition throughout life by increasing muscle mass and reducing fat mass,” said Dr. Silvia Savastano, M.D., Ph.D., researcher at University Federico II of Naples in Italy and lead author of the study. “The results of our study show that the use of short-term treatment with growth hormone during a standardized program of low calorie diet and physical exercise is effective in reducing the loss of muscle mass and increasing the loss of fat mass after bariatric surgery.”
Pregnancy-related hormonal changes linked to increased risk of restless legs syndrome
|
|
A study in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal Sleep shows that the elevation in estradiol levels that occurs during pregnancy is more pronounced in pregnant women with restless legs syndrome (RLS) than in controls.
During the last trimester of pregnancy, levels of the estrogenic steroid hormone estradiol were 34,211 pg/mL in women with RLS and 25,475 pg/mL in healthy controls. At three months postpartum, estradiol levels had dropped to 30.73 pg/mL in the RLS group and 94.92 pg/mL in controls. Other hormone levels did not differ significantly between the study groups.
According to the authors the data strongly suggest that estrogens play an important role in RLS during pregnancy. The study also supports previous reports of high RLS incidence in the last trimester of pregnancy when estradiol is maximally elevated.
Protein That Regulates Hormones Critical to Women’s Health Found in Pituitary
|
|
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have solved the mystery surrounding a “rogue protein” that plays a role in the release of neurotransmitters and hormones in the brain.
The scientists found abundant amounts of the puzzling protein — whose main location and function were unknown until now — in a specific area of the pituitary gland. Like someone at a control knob, the protein may adjust the release of the two hormones that come almost exclusively from the posterior pituitary: oxytocin, which controls many reproductive functions, and vasopressin, which controls fluid balance.
“The findings raise very interesting possibilities for women’s health, in which rising and falling hormone levels play a key role in many biological processes,” says senior author Meyer Jackson, a professor of physiology at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH). More studies will be needed to better understand the protein, he adds.
The study appears in the Jan. 11 Nature Neuroscience.
Study Finds No Correlation Between Newborn Thryoid Function within Normal Range, Cognitive Developme
|
|
There is no correlation between newborn thyroid function within the normal range and cognitive development, nor is there a correlative between maternal thyroid function and newborn thyroid function in a Boston-area sample, according to data to be presented on Oct. 4, 2008 at the 79th Annual Meeting of the American Thyroid Association (ATA) in Chicago, IL. Normal thyroid function is essential for healthy brain development. Previous studies have suggested that even mild maternal hypothyroidism during pregnancy may adversely affect child cognitive development.
On behalf of Project Viva, a team of researchers led by Dr. Emily Oken of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Dr. Elizabeth Pearce of Boston University Medical Center in Boston, Mass., studied 500 children born 1999-2003 to evaluate the relationship between thyroxine levels in newborns, first trimester maternal thyroid function, and childhood cognition. Researchers first tested mothers’ thyroid stimulating hormone, thyroxine, and thyroid peroxidase (TPO) antibody levels at an average of 10.2 weeks gestation and later measured newborns’ thyroxine levels from whole blood samples after birth.
Researchers then performed cognitive testing when the infants were six months old using the visual recognition memory (VRM) test, a measure of infant cognition that can predict later childhood IQ and specific abilities in perceptual speed, language, and memory. When the children were three years old, researchers tested them with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), a measure of verbal ability or scholastic aptitude, and the Wide Range Assessment of Visual Motor Ability (WRAVMA), which evaluates visual-spatial analysis, visual-motor ability, and fine motor skills.
Estrogen Relieves Psychotic Symptoms in Women With Schizophrenia
|
|
When combined with antipsychotic medications, the estrogen estradiol appears to be a useful treatment in women with schizophrenia, according to a report in the August issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
The link between estrogen and mental illness was recognized more than a century ago, according to background information in the article. However, scientific evidence regarding estrogen as a therapy for mental illness has only recently emerged. “Epidemiologic observations of sex differences in the onset and course of schizophrenia prompted exploration of estrogen’s role in schizophrenia,” the authors write.
Jayashri Kulkarni, M.B.B.S., M.P.M., F.R.A.N.Z.C.P., Ph.D., of The Alfred and Monash University and The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues conducted a randomized, double-blind study involving 102 women of child-bearing age with schizophrenia. For 28 days, 56 women were randomly assigned to receive 100 micrograms of estradiol daily via a skin patch and 46 women received a placebo skin patch in addition to their regular medications. Psychotic symptoms, which include delusions and hallucinatory behavior, were assessed weekly with a commonly used scale.
Mate or hibernate? That’s the question worm pheromones answer
|
|
If worms could talk, they might tell potential suitors, “I like the way you wriggle,” complete with that telltale come slither look. But worms send their valentines via signals known as pheromones, a complex chemical code researchers are now cracking, according to a study published Wednesday (July 23) in the journal Nature.
Scientists from the University of Florida, Cornell University, the California Institute of Technology and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have discovered the first mating pheromone in one of science’s most well-studied research subjects, the tiny worm Caenorhabditis elegans. But perhaps even more interesting is what the newly discovered pheromone also directs worms to do — hibernate.
At lower levels, the pheromone signals the male C. elegans to mate with its partner. But when the worm population grows and the food supply dwindles, the chemical signal increases and the cue changes from mate to hibernate. This discovery could help researchers find ways to combat more harmful worms that destroy crops and provide clues for scientists studying similar parasite worms, said Arthur Edison, Ph.D., a UF associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the College of Medicine and one of the study’s senior authors.
Testosterone gel benefits some men with diabetes
|
|
Men with type 2 diabetes or the metabolic syndrome, or both, are prone to have low testosterone levels. If so, testosterone replacement therapy with a gel applied to the skin may improve their response to insulin and their sexual function, according to the results of a new clinical trial.
Testosterone levels fall if testicular function is subnormal, a condition termed hypogonadism. “Consideration should be given to screening type 2 diabetic and metabolic syndrome patients for hypogonadism,” Dr. T. Hugh Jones told the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in San Francisco this week.
Jones, of Barnsley Hospital and the University of Sheffield in the UK, and colleagues tested the effect of a testosterone gel (Tostran) on insulin resistance and symptoms of hypogonadism in 221 men with low testosterone levels.
Low Testosterone May Cause Health Problems that Lead to Erectile Dysfunction
|
|
Men with erectile dysfunction should be examined for testosterone deficiency and the metabolic syndrome, because these conditions commonly occur together, a new study shows. The results will be presented at The Endocrine Society’s 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
“Erectile dysfunction is a portal into men’s health,” said the study’s senior author, Aksam Yassin, MD, PhD, of the Clinic for Urology and Andrology of the Segeberger Clinics in Norderstedt, Germany. “It is becoming clear that obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol problems and erectile difficulties are intertwined, and a common denominator is testosterone deficiency.”
Yassin’s research, performed with scientists from The Netherlands, Germany and the United Arab Emirates, aimed to determine in men with erectile dysfunction (ED) the prevalence of hypogonadism, the scientific term for testosterone deficiency.
Mood hormone may affect fat, U.S. study finds
|
|
A brain chemical strongly linked to mood and appetite may also directly affect fat gain, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
They said levels of serotonin, the nerve-signaling chemical targeted by many antidepressants, may also direct the body to put down fat regardless of how much food is eaten.
“It may be one reason diets fail,” metabolism expert Kaveh Ashrafi of the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.
