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Welcome to the latest edition of touchREVIEWS in Endocrinology, which features a range of review, case report and original research articles that highlight some key developments in our understanding and management of endocrinological disease. We begin with a commentary from Eleni Armeni and Ashley Grossman on seliciclib, a potential new treatment for patients with Cushing’s […]

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is generally defined as “any degree of glucose tolerance with onset or first recognition during pregnancy”.1 It currently is one of the diseases with the highest morbidity among pregnant women.2 Determining its prevalence has been a real challenge for the scientific community due to multiple modifications in the diagnostic criteria established in 1964 […]

Article highlights Lavender and tree tea oils have in vitro oestrogenic and antiandrogenic activity. It has been postulated that these oils may cause prepubertal gynaecomastia and premature thelarche. The association is based on a small number patients (N=12) described in five publications. Based upon the amount of dermal penetration of the oils or their constituents and the […]

Long-chain fatty-acid oxidation disorders (LC-FAODs) are pan-ethnic, autosomal recessive, inherited metabolic conditions causing disruption in the processing or transportation of fats into the mitochondria to perform beta oxidation.1 In normal metabolism, long-chain fatty acids are bound to carnitine within the cytosol of cells, and transported across the mitochondrial membranes. Within the mitochondria, they are then cleaved […]

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), defined as hyperglycaemia identified after the first trimester of pregnancy that is not clearly overt diabetes, impacts approximately 7% of births in the USA; a percentage that has increased in parallel with the prevalence of both obesity and type 2 diabetes over the past 20 years.1–4 The impacts of GDM include hypertensive […]

Acromegaly is a chronic disorder characterised by growth hormone (GH) hypersecretion, predominantly caused by a pituitary adenoma.1 Disease prevalence ranges from 2.8–13.7 cases and annual incidence is between 0.2–1.1 cases/100,000 people; however, real incidence is likely much higher.2,3 Average age at diagnosis ranges from 40–50 years4–6 and mean delay in diagnosis is approximately 10–11 years. […]

Monocarboxylate transporter 8 is an important thyroid hormone transporter Thyroid hormone (TH) is essential for the normal growth and development of many tissues, particularly the brain. TH is the common name for the prohormone thyroxine (3,3’,5,5’-tetraiodo-L-thyronine, T4), which is the predominant product secreted by the thyroid gland, and for the active hormone T3 (3,3’,5-triiodo-L-thyronine), which […]

The human foetus is capable of producing thyroid hormones at around 20 weeks of gestation. Even in the rare event that there happens to be a defect in thyroid organogenesis or an inborn error in thyroid hormone synthesis, the developing foetal brain is protected by the trans-placental supply of maternal T4. Within the cerebral cortex […]

Ghrelin is a 28-amino-acid peptide predominantly secreted in the stomach and stimulates appetite and growth hormone (GH) release. The name ghrelin is based on ‘ghre’ a word root in Proto-Indo-European languages meaning ‘grow’ in reference to its ability to stimulate GH release. In 1976, Bowers and co-workers discovered opioid peptide derivatives that did not exhibit […]