ESPE Abstracts

Introduction: Maternal perinatal mental disorders (PMDs) are associated with developmental and behavioral problems in the offspring, probably mediated by the programming of the limbic-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (LHPA) axis. Increased or decreased cortisol concentrations during pregnancy and the perinatal period have been associated with alterations in the stress responses of the offspring and with child behavioral problems; however, such associations remain unclear.<p ...

Background: The ability to respond to stress constitutes a defensive protective mechanism; both inadequate and excessive responses may be detrimental.Objective and hypotheses: To investigate the effect of increased body weight on the hormonal response to stress in children. Scheduled surgical procedures include two stressful parts, a psychological one (anticipation of operation) and a biological one (surgical stress per se) and were chosen as a study mod...

Background: Obesity has been associated with perturbations of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). Scalp hair cortisol has been recognized as a reliable index of long-term cortisol concentrations.Objective and hypotheses: Aim of this study was to compare indices of HPA axis and SNS activities, such as, respectively, the salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase diurnal patterns, and their relations i...

Background: There are studies supporting the seasonality of diabetes according to date of diagnosis and date of birth, with most T1D children being diagnosed in fall and winter and most of them been born in the same period. That is in concordance with previously published data from 1978 to 2008 in our country.Objective and hypotheses: To assess whether there is a seasonal variation of diabetes onset according to date of diagnosis and date of birth of inc...

Background: Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA) in newly diagnosed children with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) has been associated in previous studies with several factors, such as age or season of diagnosis.Objective and hypotheses: The aim of the present study was to assess the impact of age, gender, birth order and seasonality in DKA occurrence in newly diagnosed T1D pediatric patients.Method: Data of children aged 0–14 years newly diagnos...

Background: Honey is known for its medicinal and health promoting properties. It contains phytochemicals with high phenolic and flavonoid content, which contribute to its high antioxidant activity. Recent studies performed in adult healthy subjects suggest that honey has a beneficial effect on plasma glucose and serum insulin concentrations compared with monosacharides and disaccharides from different sources.Objective/hypotheses: To compare the effects ...

Background: The noncoding RNA growth-arrest-specific transcript 5 (Gas5) is abundant in cells whose growth has been arrested owing to lack of nutrients or growth factors. Gas5 is a riborepressor of the glucocorticoid receptor, influencing cell survival and metabolic activities during starvation by inhibiting the latter’s transcriptional activity.Aim: To determine the expression levels of Gas5 in blood samples of obese, overweight and lean children a...

Introduction: Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young (MODY) is clinically and genetically heterogeneous type of Monogenic Diabetes (MD) and to date 14 genes have been associated with different MODY subtypes. It is a rare disease characterized by early onset hyperglycemia, autosomal dominant inheritance, and defect in β cell insulin secretion, often misclassified as T1DM or T2DM.Materials and Methods: Genetic analysis ...

Background: Adrenal crisis is a life-threatening condition caused by either primary adrenal insufficiencyor hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunction, commonly due to chronic use of high-dose glucocorticoids. Clinical presentation, often with gastrointestinal symptoms (weakness, nausea, vomiting, epigastric pain) poses clinical challenges, sometimes leading to an incorrect diagnosis of gastroenteritis.Material:</stron...

Background: Since the initiation of neonatal screening programs for Congenital Hypothyroidism (CH) in the 1970’s, a gradual decrease of TSH cut-off limits has been observed worldwide. Nevertheless, lack of universal consensus has led to wide variation of cut-off limits and LT4 therapy criteria among screening programs, even within the same country. The Greek neonatal CH screening program is carried out by a single laboratory that uses one of the lowest cut-off limits worl...