Studies have shown that ghrelin plays a major role in energy homeostasis and modulation of feeding behavior. However, little is known about the influence of food consumption on plasma ghrelin levels in humans. Therefore, we investigated responses of plasma ghrelin to food intake, meal volume and meal nutritional value in healthy volunteers and women with anorexia nervosa (AN). After overnight fasting, all subjects received either a standardized breakfast or fiber. Plasma ghrelin levels were measured before and after the meal. Fasting plasma ghrelin was significantly higher in AN patients than in controls (1,800.6 +/- 47.0 vs. 795.9 +/- 24.3 pg/ml, P < 0.001) (606.8 +/- 15.8 vs. 268.2 +/- 8.2 pmol/l, P < 0.001), and correlated negatively with percentage of body fat in both groups. Ghrelin levels markedly fell after consumption of either a standardized meal or fiber in controls, but not in anorexic women. Thus, we concluded that the acute plasma ghrelin response to food intake, which in healthy individuals is independent of meal caloric value, is impaired in women with AN. This abnormality may be part of a chronic adaptation to prolonged food restriction, which attempts to restore a normal feeding conduct by maintaining the drive to eat.

Our study provides evidence of elevated baseline and exercise-induced sympathetic nervous activity and exercise-induced lipolysis in abdominal AT of AN patients.

In earlier studies carried out between 1951 and 1970, a total of 298 patients with mumps orchitis were examined in the Sexological Institute in Prague (Bart\l=a'\k, Nedoma & Mirovsk\l=y'\,1955; Sk\l=a' \lov\l=a' \,Bart\l=a'\k & Neva\l=r%v\ilov\l=a' \,1966; Bart\l=a'\k, Sk\l=a'\lov\l=a'\& Neva\l=r%v\ilov\l=a' \,1968). This number included 178 adults between 19 and 53, and 120 youths between 13 and 18 years of age. The findings can be summarized as follows. (1) Adults suffered more frequently (29%) than youths (13%) from bilateral orchitis. (2) Ejaculates were examined within 1 to 3 months following bilateral or unilateral orchitis. Spermiogenesis was severely disrupted in 50% of the patients, giving rise to oligospermia, necrospermia and azoospermia. Clinical signs of damage to the testes (diminished testicular volume, painfulness, poor consistency) were manifest in this period in 40 % of the youths and 55 % of the adults. Later, 25 % of the patients showed some degree of persistent atrophy of the affected gonads. Severe atrophy, with a considerable reduction in the size of the testes, was quite exceptional and was always found to be correlated with deterioration in spermatogenesis. Persistently poor fertility was found in many patients whose testes were not atrophie. (3) A correlation was found to exist between the severity of the orchitis and the prognosis of recovery in 60 % of patients regardless of their ages. In the remainder, however, recovery was more protracted in the younger patients, whilst normal seminal characteristics were recovered more quickly in the adults, even after a severe attack of orchitis. (4) Bilateral orchitis makes the return of normal seminal characteristics much less likely but does not preclude its possibility. Even 3 years after unilateral orchitis, at least 24% of adults and 38% of youths had abnormal ejaculates. The observations stated above do not, however, answer the question of whether mumps orchitis affects the ejaculate in all its qualities equally or whether the various recovery processes occur in parallel. The present com¬ munication presents a brief survey of the changes occurring in three basic characteristics of the ejaculate, i.e. sperm count, morphology and motility, following an attack of orchitis. Ejaculates from fifty-four patients were examined within 3, 6 and 12 months of an attack of unilateral mumps orchitis. The ejaculates of patients who underwent all three examination tests in the periods mentioned above were included, when the volume of the ejaculate was greater than 1-5 ml, and sperm motility was investigated by the Sperm Velocity Test (SVT) according to the method of Hynie (Hynie & Barták, 1967) within 1, 3 and 5 hr of ejaculation.

Thyroid hormones play a major role in lipid metabolism. However, whether they directly affect lipolysis locally in the adipose tissue remains unknown. Therefore, we measured abdominal sc adipose tissue norepinephrine (NE), basal, and isoprenaline-stimulated lipolysis in 12 hypothyroid patients (HYPO), six hyperthyroid patients (HYPER), and 12 healthy controls by in vivo microdialysis. Adipose tissue NE was decreased in HYPO and increased in HYPER compared with controls (90.4 +/- 2.9 and 458.0 +/- 69.1 vs. 294.9 +/- 19.5 pmol/liter, P < 0.01). Similarly, basal lipolysis, assessed by glycerol assay, was lower in HYPO and higher in HYPER than in controls (88.2 +/- 9.9 and 566.0 +/- 42.0 vs. 214.3 +/- 5.1 micromol/liter P < 0.01). The relative magnitude of isoprenaline-induced glycerol increase was smaller in HYPO (39 +/- 19.4%, P < 0.05 vs. basal) and higher in HYPER (277 +/- 30.4%, P < 0.01) than in controls (117 +/- 5.6%, P < 0.01). The corresponding changes in NE after isoprenaline stimulation were as follows: 120 +/- 9.2% (P < 0.05), 503 +/- 113% (P < 0.01), and 267 +/- 17.2 (P < 0.01). In summary, by affecting local NE levels and adrenergic postreceptor signaling, thyroid hormones may influence the lipolysis rate in the abdominal sc adipose tissue.