Influence of melatonin administration on glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity of postmenopausal women.

Objective: The effect of melatonin on human carbohydrate metabolism is not yet clear. We investigated whether melatonin influences glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity in aged women.

Patients: Twenty-two postmenopausal women of whom 14 were on hormone replacement therapy.

Effect of exogenous melatonin on vascular reactivity and nitric oxide in postmenopausal women: role of hormone replacement therapy.

Objective: Several effects of melatonin are modulated by gonadal steroids and are reduced in ageing women. Administration of melatonin reduces internal carotid artery pulsatility index (PI), and blood pressure in young individuals. Whether these effects are conserved in postmenopausal women and are influenced by hormone replacement therapy (HRT), was herein investigated.

Effect of ovarian suppression on glucose metabolism of young lean women with and without ovarian hyperandrogenism.

Gonadal steroids are believed to influence glucose metabolism, oestrogens inducing an improvement and androgens or progestins a deterioration. At baseline and after 3 months of ovarian suppression with a gonadotrophin-releasing hormone analogue (GnRHa: goserelin depot 3.75 mg/28 days), glucose metabolism was evaluated in eight lean women affected by ovarian hyperandrogenism (PCOS) and six age-weight-matched non-hyperandrogenic women (controls) by using both an oral glucose tolerance test (75 g; OGTT) and the minimal model method.