Carrier-mediated transport of metformin across the human placenta determined by using the ex vivo perfusion of the placental cotyledon model.

Objective: Metformin is a polar positively charged compound. The aim of the study was to characterize its permeability across the human placenta using the ex vivo placental perfusion model.

Methods: Selected cotyledons from term placentas were cannulated and dually perfused.

Selective increases in adrenal steroidogenic capacity during acute respiratory disease in infants.

To examine steroidogenic responses of the different zones of the adrenal cortex to acute disease we determined the basal and adrenocorticotropin (ACTH)-stimulated levels of cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEAS) and aldosterone in 16 infants aged 1-4 months with acute bronchiolitis. Fourteen of the infants were retested after recovery. During illness the mean basal levels of cortisol and DHEAS were twice as high as the levels after recovery (370 vs 180 nmol/l and 2.

Hyperinsulinaemia increases blood pressure in genetically predisposed spontaneously hypertensive rats but not in normotensive Wistar-Kyoto rats.

Background: There is controversy in the literature concerning the effect of short-term insulin administration on blood pressure in different experimental situations, because in some experiments this association is clear, whereas in others it is nonexistent.

Objective: To investigate whether there is a difference in the effect of exogenous insulin administration on the blood pressure of normotensive Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats and hypertensive spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR).

Methods: Hyperinsulinaemia was induced in normotensive WKY rats and in hypertensive SHR by the administration of long-acting insulin (insulin retard 0.

[Effect of low-dose amiodarone on thyroid function].

Thyroid function was examined periodically in a group of 85 patients treated with low-dose amiodarone, and followed for 1-13 years (mean 3.6). Biochemical hypothyroidism (elevated thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) only) developed in 8 patients and clinical hypothyroidism in 3, while hypothyroidism developed in 5.

[Elevated thyroid hormone levels in the absence of hyperactivity].

Elevated blood levels of thyroid hormones may be due to causes other than glandular hyperactivity. We have seen transient increases in total thyroxine (TT4), free thyroxine index (FTI), free thyroxine (FT4), and total triiodothyronine (TT3) in 12 women and 3 men with subacute thyroiditis and 2 women with painless (silent) postpartum thyroiditis. Elevated TT4, FTI, and FT4 were found in 11 of 85 patients treated with amiodarone.