Pregnancy and lactation are times of prolonged physiological changes affecting the neuroendocrine and immunological systems. One well-characterized change is the neuroendocrine hyporesponsiveness to acute stressful stimuli. We have now designed studies to see whether there is an alteration in the response of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis to an immunological inflammatory challeng...

Improvement of glucose metabolism after bariatric surgery appears to be from the composite effect of the alterations in multiple circulating gut hormone concentrations. However, their individual effect on glucose metabolism during different conditions is not clear. The objective of this study was to determine whether ghrelin has an impact on glycogenolysis, gluconeogenesis, and insulin sensitiv...

Objectives were to characterize changes in concentrations of LH, FSH, and estradiol-17beta (estradiol) in blood and populations of ovarian follicles of prepubertal cattle during waves of follicular development and to evaluate interactions between day after follicular aspiration and month prepuberty for these variables. During each month (month prepuberty), ovarian follicles of prepubertal cattl...

BACKGROUND Identification of new therapeutic targets remains an imperative goal to improve the morbidity and mortality associated with severe sepsis and septic shock. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF), a proinflammatory cytokine and counterregulator of glucocorticoids, has recently emerged as a critical mediator of innate immunity and experimental sepsis, and it is an attractive new ...

Synthetic conjugation of a glucuronide to 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25D3) to produce β-25-monoglucuronide-1,25D3 (βGluc-1,25D3) renders the hormone biologically inactive and resistant to mammalian digestive enzymes. However, β-glucuronidase produced by bacteria in the lower intestinal tract can cleave off the glucuronide, releasing the active hormone. In mice given a single oral dose of 1,25D...

The hormonal effects of circulating norepinephrine (NE) were evaluated with two-step NE infusion studies in normal volunteers. At an infusion rate that increased plasma NE 2.5-fold (approximately equivalent to the change from supine to upright posture), there were small but consistent increases in diastolic pressure (+5 mm Hg) and plasma renin activity (+13%). At the high extreme of the physiol...

Hyperleptinaemia is known to be positively associated with obesity in females. Therefore, circulating leptin concentrations are predicted by body mass index (BMI). Additional effects of endogenous C19-steroids, sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), C-peptide and insulin on the predictive value of BMI on serum leptin were investigated ...

We have examined circulating concentrations of a parathyroid hormone-like peptide (PLP) in patients with malignancies and in patients with hyperparathyroidism. The radioimmunoassay employed reacts with synthetic amino-terminal fragments of PLP but not with parathyroid hormone. Elevated plasma PLP concentrations were observed in 50% of patients with malignancy and hypercalcemia and in 15% of nor...