ESPE Abstracts

Background: Telomere length at birth is a major determinant of telomere length in late adulthood. However, the prenatal setting of telomere length is poorly understood. Individuals born large from non-diabetic mothers are at lower risk for later-life disorders than those born small, a feature of their longer health span being a higher lean mass that provides more muscle strength and that is already present in infancy.Objective, hypotheses & methods: ...

Background: CHARGE syndrome is a variable entity. Clinical diagnosis is based on the Blake-Verloes criteria and can be confirmed by identifying a mutation in CHD7. Hypoplasia of the genitalia is a common feature and is most often attributable to hypogonadotropic hypogonadism which is described in 81% of the males and 93% of the female patients. Other genital anomalies are rare. Combined agenesis of the uterus and ovaries is so far only reported in one patient with sus...

Insulin resistance and hepato-visceral (central) fat excess are thought to contribute to an earlier timing of adrenarche/pubarche and puberty/menarche; this earlier timing in turn relates often to a mismatch between pre- and postnatal weight gain, which can be estimated by calculating the Z-score change from birth weight (BW) to body mass index (BMI) in childhood. We tested the hypothesis that this calculation may serve as a proxy of insulin resistance and hepato-visceral adip...

Background: Oligo-ovulatory androgen excess in women (polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) by NIH definition) is a major cause of subfertility and relates to hepatic steatosis, independently of obesity.Objective: To test whether early treatment of PCOS affects subsequent ovulation rate.Method: Adolescent girls with hyperinsulinemic androgen excess – a subgroup of PCOS – (mean age 16 year; BMI 23.7 kg/m2) randomly r...

Background: Prenatal growth restraint associates with risk for later diabetes particularly if such restraint is followed by postnatal formula-feeding (FOF) rather than breast-feeding (BRF). Circulating incretins can influence the neonatal programming of hypothalamic setpoints for appetite and energy expenditure, and are thus candidate mediators of the long-term effects exerted by early nutrition.Objective, hypotheses and method: We have tested this conce...

Background: Infants born small-for-gestational age (SGA) who develop postnatal weight catch-up are at risk for insulin resistance, central adiposity and cardiovascular disease in later life, even in the absence of overweight.Objective and hypotheses: In young (age 3–6 years) non-obese SGA children, we assessed arterial health by intima-media thickness (IMT) and abdominal fat distribution (subcutaneous, visceral, pre-peritoneal and hepatic components...

Background: Hyperinsulinemic androgen excess is the most common cause of hirsutism, acne, seborrhea and menstrual irregularity in adolescent girls. The ovarian androgen excess originates most often from an absolute or relative excess of fat (in adipose tissue and in organs such as the liver) and from the ensuing elevations in insulinaemia and gonadotropin secretion. There is no approved therapy for androgen excess in adolescent girls. The prime recommendation is to reduce body...

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...

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a prevalent disorder in adolescent girls, commonly driven by hepato-visceral fat excess, usually presenting with hirsutism and menstrual irregularity, and often followed by subfertility and type 2 diabetes.We studied the miRNA profile of adolescent girls with PCOS, and the effects of randomized treatment with an oral contraceptive (OC) or with spironolactone-pioglitazone-metformin (SPIOMET, aiming at loss of hepato-vis...

Background/objectives: Individuals born small-for-gestational age (SGA), especially those who experience postnatal catch-up growth, are at increased risk for developing endocrine-metabolic abnormalities before puberty. In adults, brown adipose tissue (BAT) has been associated with protection against metabolic disorders, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and dyslipidaemia. Here, we assessed for the first time whether BAT activation differs between prepubertal children born SGA o...