Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to C Beckers.
In 11 infants of 3-19 months of age with active gluten-induced enteropathy, an exaggerated and sustained response of plasma TSH to TRH was observed as compared to controls. In these same patients, there was a decrease in total and free T4 and T3 concentrations. All these values were statistically different from controls.
Eighty-nine patients operated for nontoxic goiter have been followed up. An enhanced TSH response to TRH was observed in 74% of the cases of multinodular goiter, but only in 23% of uninodular goiter. The therapeutic implications of these data are discussed.
In sixteen cases of toxic adenoma of the thyroid (autonomous hot nodule with complete suppression of the surrounding normal parenchyma) potassium iodide was given in doses of 100 microgram/day for one week, 200 microgram/day for another and 400 microgram/day for a third week. There was a progressive increase in the serum T4 level. Serum T3 also increased, although this was significant only after the first week. Serum TSH was undetectable throughout the entire period of the study. This metabolic pattern is different from the response seen in cases of nontoxic endemic goitre, where small iodine supplements induce an increase in serum T4 but a decrease in serum T3. Furthermore, the present results may explain the phenomenon of iodine-induced or iodine-precipitated hyperthyroidism (Jod-Basedow) when patients with autonomous thyroid are presented with a high iodine intake. In contrast to the results obtained with small iodide doses, two other cases treated with large pharmacological doses of iodide showed a decrease in both serum T4 and serum T3. It is concluded that the physician should be aware of the possibility of precipitating or aggravating thyrotoxicosis in patients with an autonomous hot nodule by increasing their intake of iodine.
Plasma levels of thyrotrophin before and after the intravenous administration of 200 microgram of thyrotrophin releasing hormone have been studied in eleven patients with active gluten-induced enteropathy and in a group of twenty-one normal prepubertal children. In nine out of eleven coeliac patients an exaggerated and/or sustained response of plasma thyrotrophin is observed. Basal plasma thyrotrophin level is not significantly different from the value observed in normal children. However, plasma levels recorded 20 and 60 min after injection of the releasing hormone are significantly higher than in control children (at 20 min: P less than 0.01; at 60 min: P less than 0.001). Serum levels of dialysed triiodothyronine and thyroxine and of triiodothyronine are significantly lower in coeliac patients than in normal infants (P less than 0.01). These data support the evidence of an endocrine dysfunction in coeliac disease. It is not clear whether it is due to malnutrition and/or to some direct action of circulating gluten-peptides on the hypothalamus.
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Various factors that influence the measurement of serum folic acid-binding protein (FABP) by radioassay were examined. Varying the protein concentration and the composition of the charcoal suspension can increase or reduce the value of the blank, i.e. the estimate of FABP. Moreover, it was found that the value of the FABP depends on the quantity of folic acid in the incubation medium. Reproducible results can only be obtained with rigorously defined conditions of concentration of the different reactants.
Several derivatives of the arthropod moulting hormone have been synthesized which were coupled to AH Sepharose 4B yielding about 2 mumole ligand per g wet gel. As an indication of the suitability of the ligands for biological work the puff inducing capacity of their methyl esters was tested. The methyl ester of inokosterone-C-26-carboxylic acid possesses the highest biological activity; lower activities were obtained with the esters of ecdysterone-C-6-CM-oxime and ecdysterone hemisuccinates. Therefore, inokosterone-C-26-carbocylic acid should be a useful ligand for affinity chromatography of ecdysone recptors from insect tissues.
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Protein-calorie malnutrition (P.C.M.) in a group of 43 Senegalese children aged eighteen to thirty months was characterised by a sharp fall in serum-triiodothyronine (T3) concentration to 25-3% of the mean value in healthy age-matched controls. This decrease in T3 was significantly (P less than 0-001) more pronounced in kwashiorkor of recent onset than in long-term P.C.M., a finding which suggests that impaired thyroxine (T4) monodeiodination in the liver was responsible for the fall in serum-T3 concentration rather than a reduction in the secretion of T3 by the thyroid. Serum-T3 concentrations became normal in both malnourished groups after two weeks of appropriate nutrition. Serum-T3 concentrations in healthy, euthyroid, Senegalese children were higher than in White children. In frank kwashiorkor in Senegalese children, serum-thyroid-stimulating-hormone (T.S.H.) concentrations were within the normal range throughout the entire course of dietary therapy, indicating that the children remained euthyroid. In contrast, protracted P.C.M. led to impairment of the T.S.H./T3 feedback mechanism and to a condition resembling hypophysectomy, which required two weeks' dietary therapy for its correction.
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