ESPE Abstracts

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the difference between the incidence of hypoglycemia in those preterm newborns who were exposed to steroids and those who were not.Methodology: This is a prospective cohort study of preterm infants born between 2017 and 2018 at a gestational age of 26 to 34 6/7 weeks in the Hospital Universitario de Santander- HUS- in Bucaramanga, Colombia.Results: 128 preterm infants were e...

Background: The phenotypic effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may depend on their parental origin. PLAGL1 is an imprinted gene expressed from the paternal allele in placenta that is associated with fetal growth, transient neonatal diabetes mellitus and postnatal growth disorders. The mechanisms whereby PLAG1 regulates fetal growth are, however, unknown.Objective and hypotheses: To study if the preferential paternal transm...

Background: There is a direct relation between C-reactive protein and leukocyte count as indicators of inflammation. The neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is the balance between both cells and is considered a marker of low-grade inflammation and an indicator of high risk of cardiovascular events. An elevated NLR is related with type 2 diabetes (T2D), however, even when in type 1 diabetes (T1D) there is an underlying inflammatory process, an elevation of circulating neutrophils...

Background: Excessive energy intake and rapid weight gain early in life are associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, hepatic steatosis and other features of the metabolic syndrome. The monoacylglycerol acyltransferase (MGAT) is an enzyme involved in an alternative pathway for triglyceride (TAG) synthesis and storage. It has been recently proposed to have potential implications in the pathogenesis of hepatic insulin resistance (IR).Objective: To understa...

Background: CREB-regulated transcription coactivator 3 (CRTC3) is found in adipocytes where it may promote obesity through disruption of catecholamine signaling. CRTC3 knockout mice are resistant to diet-induced obesity.Objective and Hypotheses: The goals of the present study were i) to assess whether CRTC3 is a soluble protein secreted by adipose tissue ii) to explore whether CRTC3 is detectable and quantifiable in the circulation, and iii) to ...

Background: The innate immune system is one of the first lines of host defense against invading pathogens. Pro-inflammatory α-defensins (mainly DEFA1–3) and anti-inflammatory bacterial/permeability-increasing protein (BPI) are antimicrobial peptides predominantly produced by neutrophils which have been recently related to obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular risk.Objective and hypotheses: The aim of our study was to test whether α-d...

Background: Muscle is key to glucose metabolism. Myogenesis is completed in early infancy, partly under the inhibitory control of myostatin, a myokine whose actions can be influenced by follistatin. Early lowering of myostatin actions is thus a potential strategy to reduce the risk for later diabetes.Objective and hypotheses: We performed a first screening of whether such lowering is among the natural mechanisms whereby some human infants augment their l...

Background: Increased uric acid is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease in obese adults and adolescents. The relationship between uric acid and atherosclerotic risk early in life is unknown.Objective and hypotheses: We investigated whether uric acid relates to carotid intima–media thickness (cIMT), a marker of preclinical atherosclerosis, in a rather large sample of school-age children and investigated the interaction of obesity sta...

Background: In rodents, fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21), an endocrine member of the FGF family, is mainly produced in the liver and promotes glucose oxidation in several tissues; the circulating concentrations of FGF21 rise shortly after birth. In the human, the ontogeny of circulating FGF21 is essentially unknown.Objective and hypotheses: To assess whether there is also a neonatal surge of circulating FGF21 concen...

Background: DLK1 (PREF1) is a key inhibitor of adipogenesis and adipocyte differentiation. Adipose tissue expansion depends on adequate adipocyte differentiation. However, whether lower DLK1 expression facilitates adipose tissue expansion following fetal growth restriction is so far unknown.Objective and hypotheses: To study the expression of DLK1 in the adipose tissue of prenatally growth-restricted rats and its relat...