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Developmental Endocrinology Branch (V.K.B., M.M.C., M.L.L., J.A.Y., L.M.N., C.A.B.), National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and National Center for Complementary Medicine (M.J.Q., G.S.), National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892
Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: C. A. Bondy, Building 10/10N262, 10 Center Drive, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892. E-mail: bondyc{at}mail.nih.gov.
| Abstract |
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I/
G30) was decreased by 60% compared with POF (P < 0.0001). We also compared responses to a standard iv glucose tolerance test in women with TS and in age- and body mass index-matched normal women and found that the insulin area under the curve was 50% lower in women with TS (P = 0.003). Insulin sensitivity measured by the quantitative insulin sensitivity check index was higher in women with TS compared with both control groups. Thus, IGH is not secondary to obesity or hypogonadism in TS, but it is a distinct entity characterized by decreased insulin secretion, suggesting that haploinsufficiency for X-chromosome gene(s) impairs ß-cell function and predisposes to diabetes mellitus in TS. | Introduction |
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| Subjects and Methods |
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Women with TS and 46,XX POF were recruited mainly through notices posted on internet web sites. Normal healthy women volunteers were recruited through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Patient Recruitment Office. Subjects were informed of the nature of the studies and signed informed consents that were approved by the National Institute of Child Health Institutional Review Board. Karyotype analysis of G-banded chromosomes in 50 peripheral blood cells was performed for women with TS and POF. Diagnosis of TS was based on X-monosomy or X-deletion affecting
70% of lymphocytes and the presence of short stature and ovarian failure. Diagnosis of POF was based on finding at least 4 months of amenorrhea, two determinations of FSH levels greater than 40 mIU/ml, and a normal 46,XX karyotype. Women with a prior history of diabetes mellitus or use of medications known to affect carbohydrate metabolism were excluded from the study. All study subjects discontinued ovarian hormone treatment at least 2 wk before the study and were in good general health and were euthyroid as determined by physical examination and screening lab tests.
Oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT)
Study subjects were placed on a carbohydrate-replete diet (300 g/d) for 3 d before inpatient testing at the NIH Clinical Center. They fasted overnight and received 1.75 g/kg oral dextrose (maximum, 75 g) in the morning. Blood was sampled for glucose and insulin before and at 30, 60, 120, and 180 min after the administration of the dextrose. Glucose homeostasis was examined in women with POF during 19971999, at which time, insulin was measured by RIA (Covance, Vienna, VA). The range of normal fasting values for this assay was 221 µIU/ml (14144 pmol/liter), with a mean of 11 µIU/ml (79 pmol/liter). The intraassay coefficient of variation (CV) was 10.9% at a level of 7.5 µIU/ml (54 pmol/liter) and 4.2% at a level of 17 µIU/ml (123 pmol/liter). The interassay CV was 10% for values near 12 µIU/ml (85 pmol/liter) and 8.5% for values near 45 µIU/ml (324 pmol/liter). Glucose homeostasis was examined in women with TS during 20002002 when the Covance insulin RIA had been discontinued, and insulin was measured by a comparable immunochemiluminescent assay (Immulite 2000 analyzer; Diagnostic Products Corporation, Los Angeles, CA). Reference fasting values for this assay are 6-27 µIU/ml [43194 pmol/liter; mean, 16 µIU/ml (115 pmol/liter)]; the intraassay CV was 5% and the interassay CV was 7.5% at 24 µIU/ml (172 pmol/liter). To allow comparisons across the two assays, insulin values are expressed as Z scores in the following way: (measured insulin mean value for the assay)/SD of the assay. Glucose was measured by the glucose oxidase method on an LX-20 Beckman Coulter Analyzer (Beckman Coulter, Inc., Fullerton, CA) for all studies.
Intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT)
To further study insulin secretion, we performed IVGTT in women with TS and age-matched healthy women recruited through the volunteer office of NIH during 20012003. IVGTT was performed in the morning after an overnight fast with the study subject in a recumbent position. One antecubital vein on each arm was cannulated, and 0.3 g/kg dextrose as 20% water solution was injected over 45 sec in one of the veins. Blood was drawn from the contralateral antecubital vein at 5, 1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 20 min for measuring of serum insulin and glucose concentration. Glucose was measured as noted earlier, and insulin was measured by an immunochemiluminescent assay, as described earlier.
Statistics
Data are expressed as mean ± SE bars (figures), mean ± SD (tables and text), or as percentages. Differences between group means were examined by analysis of covariance with Fishers protected least significant difference procedure. Differences of the mean insulin and glucose levels at the different time points of the OGTT and IVGTT were examined by multivariate analysis of covariance. Comparisons of proportions were made by the Z test with Yates correction. Correlations were examined by Pearsons product. The significance level was set at P = 0.05. StatView 5.01 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC) was used for all analyses.
| Results |
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Fasting glucose levels were slightly lower but glucose levels after the oral glucose load were significantly higher in women with TS, with the mean 2-h glucose more than 50% higher than in POF controls (Table 1
and Fig. 1
). Nine (36%) of 25 women with TS compared with zero of 33 women with POF demonstrated impaired glucose homeostasis as defined by a 2-h glucose of more than 140 mg/dl (7.8 mmol/liter; P < 0.001) (Table 1
). Three women with TS (12%) had a 2-h glucose of more than 200 mg/dl (11.1 mmol/liter), suggesting a tentative diagnosis of diabetes mellitus by World Health Organization criteria. Measures of insulin secretion, including the homeostasis model of assessment-ß, which reflects basal conditions (12), the early insulin response to glucose (13), and first phase insulin release (14) were all significantly reduced in the TS group (Table 1
and Fig. 1
). Insulin sensitivity measured by the quantitative insulin sensitivity check index (15) was higher in women with TS (0.40 ± 0.04) compared with women with POF (0.34 ± 0.02; P < 0.001).
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140 mg/dl (7.8 mmol/liter)] demonstrated significantly lower insulin responses than women with POF (Fig. 2
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To further investigate insulin secretion in TS, we compared responses to an IVGTT in women with TS vs. age- and BMI-matched healthy female volunteers. Insulin release was markedly lower in women with TS, especially during the earliest time points (Fig. 3
and Table 3
). As observed, compared with women with POF, insulin sensitivity measured by the quantitative insulin sensitivity check index was better in women with TS compared with normal controls. Acute insulin response appears to decrease significantly with age in women with TS (r = 0.303, P = 0.035, Pearson correlation) but not in normal controls (r = 0.12, P = 0.30). This is also evident from Table 2
, in which glucose tolerance and insulin release are progressively impaired with increasing age.
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| Discussion |
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There is a syndrome of immune dysregulation, polyendocrinopathy, enteropathy, and X-linked inheritance caused by mutations of FOXP3, which encodes a forkhead transcription factor apparently involved in immune function (20). This usually fatal disorder manifests full-blown, type 1diabetes in infancy. This is obviously not the typical phenotype in TS, and we have not found evidence for islet cell autoimmunity or association between IGH and autoimmune hypothyroidism in TS (our unpublished data). However, there is a long history of more subtle observations connecting the X-chromosome and diabetes risk. A male preponderance of type 1 diabetes among Caucasians in the United States, United Kingdom, and Sardinia has been linked to Xp (21), and a recent European study suggests that the male excess in diabetes diagnosed in adults is neither specific for the immune-mediated form nor is it human leukocyte antigen-DQ restricted (22). An X-linked diabetes gene would explain the male preponderance and the opposite sex bias in parental transmission of diabetes mellitus because affected fathers would never transmit the trait to sons, whereas affected mothers would be more likely to produce affected sons than daughters.
A Danish registry study reported an approximately 10-fold increase in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (defined by the use of insulin) and an approximately 4-fold increase in noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in TS (3). Most investigators familiar with TS, however, do not find any excess of typical early-onset, immune-mediated type 1 diabetes (8, 23). In our experience with about 150 subjects with TS, we have not encountered any such cases. Thus, it seems likely that the increased prevalence of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus reported in the Danish study may reflect the insulinopenia described in this report and a likely marked insulin-responsiveness in TS. A euglycemic insulin clamp study found that peripheral insulin sensitivity was reduced by 2025% in girls with TS compared with controls (9). In that small study, however, controls were not matched for BMI, gender, pubertal status, or insulin level during the clamp, so it seems possible that a confounder such as excess adiposity may explain altered glucose disposal rates in these girls. A recent study using a frequently sampled IVGTT with minimal model assessment found that insulin sensitivity was similar in Danish adults with TS compared with age- and BMI-matched normal women (8). Interestingly, in view of the present findings, a small study many years ago reported decreased insulin secretion in response to glucagons and tolbutamide in girls with TS (24). The present study compared normal-weight women with TS to age- and BMI-matched women with 46,XX POF and to normal women, aiming to isolate the genetic factors influencing glucose metabolism in TS from effects of adiposity and hypogonadism. In this study, we showed that insulin secretion was reduced and insulin sensitivity was actually better in women with TS compared with both groups of controls.
In conclusion, our findings show that impaired insulin secretion resulting in an increased prevalence of IGH is a primary feature of the Turner metabolic phenotype. Exclusion of secondary causes, such as altered body composition or sex steroid effect due to ovarian failure, implicates haploinsufficiency for unknown X-chromosome genes in this metabolic phenotype. Further studies are required to identify the X-chromosome locus and gene(s) responsible for this distinct metabolic phenotype.
| Footnotes |
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Received January 23, 2004.
Accepted March 30, 2004.
| References |
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