ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2020 Dec 1;105(12):dgaa633. doi: 10.1210/clinem/dgaa633. PMID: 32898218.In this study, low risk pregnant women had an ‘early’ OGTT at 18-20 weeks of gestation and these results were correlated with the standard OGTT at 24-28 weeks. Pregnant women with Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) who had early OGTT still had a higher risk of delivering macrosomic in...

To read the full abstract: Nature Communications 2018;9:1544Obesity prevalence is generally higher in women than in men, and there is also a sex difference in body fat distribution. Sex differences in obesity can be explained in part by the influence of gonadal steroids on body composition and appetite; however, behavioural, and socio-cultural factors may also play a role. Here is th...

Brief summary: This basic science study in mice shows how melanocortin neurons integrate reproductive signaling with energy homeostasis. In melanocortin neurons, estradiol (E2) enhances the anorectic action of leptin. Cited1 is enriched in these neurons and its loss exacerbates diet-induced obesity in female mice. Using several specific mouse models it is demonstrated how hypothalamic Cited1, via ERα and Stat3 interactions, link the effects of E2 and leptin on food intake...

To read the full abstract: Nat Comm 2019; 10(1): 1718Steroid receptor coactivator (SRC)-1 mediates nuclear hormone receptors and transcription factor-dependent transcription (1), and interacts with STAT3 (2) an important mediator of leptin-induced POMC expression and hence satiety (3). Src-1 knockout mice are obese (4), however, the underlying mechanism is unclear. In a...

To read the full abstract: Nat Med. 2017 Dec; 23(12): 1444–1453This study highlights the importance of asprosin in the regulation of appetite. This peptide hormone was first described by Romere et al. in 2016 (1), who reported 2 patients with neonatal progeroid syndrome (NPS) due to truncating heterozygous mutations in the fibrillin-gene (FBN1). The FBN1 gene encodes profibrillin wh...

Brief summary: This collaborative study identified 13 monoallelic rare loss-of-function (LoF) variants in the serotonin 2C receptor (HTR2C) gene in 19 unrelated individuals with hyperphagia, severe early-onset obesity, and some degree of maladaptive behaviour. The authors used exome sequencing in 2548 individuals with severe obesity and 1117 control individuals without obesity. They found that HTR2C variants cause monogenic obesity by demonstrating t...