Endocrine Insider
April 4, 2007

Endocrine Society members and their work often appear in the popular press. Here are a few recent instances of members in the news.

Endocrine Disruptors and Obesity
Society member Retha R. Newbold of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) was recently featured in the Washington Post, among other newspapers, for her research showing that prenatal exposure to certain endocrine-disrupting chemicals may make a person more prone to obesity later in life. Newbold presented her findings on the effects of exposure to the synthetic estrogen diethylstilbestrol (DES) at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Newbold’s research, which spanned 30 years, revealed that mice exposed to DES early in their development tended to produce more and larger fat cells, and more abdominal fat, than mice in the control group. The exposed mice also became obese adults, even on regimens of reduced calorie intake and increased exercise. In the Post article, Newbold was quoted as saying "Once these genetic changes happen in utero, they are irreversible and with the individual for life."

Researchers interviewed for the article noted that the next step is to learn if these apparent “obesogens” are also affecting humans.

The Washington Post article is available here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2007/03/11/AR2007031100918.html

NIH Funding
The April 2007 issue of Men’s Health magazine contains a report on the current state of NIH funding and its chilling effect on a number of biomedical research projects. Member Alan Schneyer was prominently featured in the article, which discusses life after the NIH doubling era (1997-2003). Since the doubling, the agency’s budget has remained essentially flat while inflation has increased by 9 percent.

The impact of this stagnant budget climate has been that much promising research such as Schneyer’s is facing severe funding challenges and limited resources, with the potential of being altogether lost. In the article, Schneyer noted that since the NIH started issuing research grants after World War II, “a good 75 percent” of discovered cures have come from government-funded programs. Schneyer’s research, as reported in the magazine, is on genetically manipulated mice that demonstrate improved glucose tolerance and lower visceral fat. This discovery, he noted, has potential implications for diabetes research in humans.

The Men’s Health article can be found at: http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=health&
category=doctors.hospitals&conitem=9ee5a1e3f0921110VgnVCM20000012281eac

Human Growth Hormone
There has been considerable media coverage for the past few weeks on the use of human growth hormone (hGH) as an anti-aging therapy. These stories primarily resulted from the Broward County, Fla., medical examiner’s discovery that Anna Nicole Smith’s body contained a deep infection due to the probable repeated injections of an anti-aging cocktail of drugs including hGH.

In response to strong media interest in this story and other hGH topics, The Endocrine Society issued a nationwide media advisory highlighting the technical expertise of its members on hGH therapy and a willingness to work with reporters on this topic.

Society member Mary Lee Vance was featured in Newsweek stating that she estimates approximately 30 percent of growth hormone prescriptions in the United States are for reasons not approved by the FDA. The Newsweek story also cited the 2005 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association claiming that between 20,000 and 30,000 people used hGH as an anti-aging therapy in 2004—a 10-fold increase from the mid 1990s.

Those who tout hGH as an anti-aging therapy base their claims on in a 1990 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, which indicated that regular hGH injections may increase lean body mass and bone density. Since then, as reported in Newsweek, other studies have shown that hGH may contribute to diabetes, arthritis, and hypertension.

The Newsweek story can be found here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17840738/site/newsweek/