ESPE Abstracts

Background: Bioavailability of peptide/protein – drugs is extremely low after oral administration due to their instability in the gastrointestinal tract or poor absorption.Objective and hypotheses: Oral delivery of growth hormone and somatostatin by adding extreme stable lipids.Method: A liposomal system based on a combination of standard lipids and membrane spanning tetraether lipids, which are extremely stable biomolecules. ...

Introduction: Limited research has focused on the potential connection between thyroid function and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), particularly beyond prenatal effects. The few studies addressing children and adolescents have important methodological shortcomings, mainly when seeking to establish causality. To clarify this relationship, a combined epidemiological and genetic approach was adopted to overcome the methodological limitations of e...

In view of the high prevalence of obesity in childhood and adolescence treatments of obesity in young ages represent a major burden to the health care systems around the world. However, still treatments are ineffective largely, and little is being done to organize effective prevention and to enhance societal understanding of the complex etiology of the disease. In more developed and industrialized countries, and that is in all of Europe and in North America as well as in Austr...

Early life events can profoundly affect an individual's metabolic phenotype, inducing adaptive responses that may be protective in utero but potentially disadvantageous for long-term health. Indeed, environmental cues during sensitive windows of development may result in altered growth and lead to an increased risk of cardiovascular and metabolic alterations later in life. In this talk, I will discuss several models of exposure to early life events, which were the top...

Purpose: States of starvation are characterized by reduced physical activity and social withdrawal. The reduction of leptin levels during starvation has been proposed to be a mediator of these changes, therefore we aimed to ascertain if leptin substitution in patients with congenital leptin deficiency (CLD) can increase physical activity and improve mood.Methods: Seven CLD patients were filmed prior to and after short te...

Background: A fair number of epidemiological studies suggest that age at menarche (AAM) is associated with depression, but the reported effect sizes are small, and there is evidence of residual confounding. Moreover, previous Mendelian randomization (MR) studies to avoid inferential problems inherent to epidemiological studies have provided mixed findings.Methods: To clarify the causal relationship between age at menarch...

Background: Male preterm infants are at increased risk of neonatal mortality when compared to their female counterparts. The mechanisms explaining this male disadvantage are not fully elucidated yet.Objective and hypotheses: To compare glucocorticoid metabolite excretion in urine obtained at day 10 between male and female infants born with a very low birth weight (VLBW; i.e. <1500 g). We hypothesized that male preterm infants have impaired adrenocort...

Background and aims: Little is known about the incidence and clinical consequences of hyperthyroidism in paediatric patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM).Methods: We analysed the DPV database to investigate the rate of hyperthyroidism in paediatric T1DM patients, its impact on metabolic control, and potential associations with other autoimmune diseases.Results: Hyperthyroidism was found in 276/60,456 patients (0.46%) and wa...

Background: POMC plays a major role in central body weight regulation. Recently we have shown that a POMC hypermethylation variant is significantly associated with obesity in children and adolescents (Kuehnen et al. PLoS Genetics 2012).Objective and hypotheses: Here we report about our extended studies to elucidate the mechanism behind the occurrence of the POMC hypermethylation variant in obese individuals.<p clas...

Background: X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) is a rare genetic disorder of phosphate metabolism caused by mutations in the PHEX gene. XLH patients exhibit short stature and skeletal deformities, which are caused by defective bone mineralization site leading to increased porosity and decreased matrix stiffness. Bone mineral density measurements have been shown to be insensitive to the cumulative bone alterations. The velocity of the first arriving signal (vFAS) ...