Endocrinology is a branch of biology and medicine dealing with the endocrine system, its diseases, and its specific secretions known as hormones. It is also concerned with the integration of developmental events proliferation, growth, and differentiation, and the psychological or behavioral activities of metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, sleep, digestion, respiration, excretion, mood, stress, lactation, movement, reproduction, and sensory perception caused by hormones. Specializations include behavioral endocrinology and comparative endocrinology.
Type 2 diabetes (T2D), formerly known as adult-onset diabetes, is a form of diabetes mellitus that is characterized by high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and relative lack of insulin. Common symptoms include increased thirst, frequent urination, fatigue and unexplained weight loss. Other symptoms include increased hunger, having a sensation of pins and needles, and sores (wounds) that heal slowly. Symptoms often develop slowly. Long-term complications from high blood sugar include heart disease, stroke, diabetic retinopathy, which can result in blindness, kidney failure, and poor blood flow in the lower-limbs, which may lead to amputations. The sudden onset of hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state may occur; however, ketoacidosis is uncommon.
Pediatric endocrinology is a medical subspecialty dealing with disorders of the endocrine glands, such as variations of physical growth and sexual development in childhood, diabetes and many more.
Central diabetes insipidus, recently renamed arginine vasopressin deficiency (AVP-D), is a form of diabetes insipidus that is due to a lack of vasopressin (ADH) production in the brain. Vasopressin acts to increase the volume of blood (intravascularly), and decrease the volume of urine produced. Therefore, a lack of it causes increased urine production and volume depletion.
Andrea Prader was a Swiss scientist, physician, and pediatric endocrinologist. He co-discovered Prader–Willi syndrome and created two physiological sex development scales, the Prader scale and the orchidometer.
Douglas Montagu Temple Gairdner FRCP was a Scottish paediatrician, research scientist, academic and author. Gairdner was principally known for a number of research studies in neonatology at a time when that subject was being developed as perhaps the most rewarding application of basic physiology to patient care, and later his most important contributions as editor, firstly editing Recent Advances in Paediatrics, and then of Archives of Disease in Childhood for 15 years, turning the latter into an international journal of repute with its exemplary standards of content and presentation.
Shashank R. Joshi is an Indian endocrinologist, diabetologist and medical researcher, considered by many as one of the prominent practitioners of the trade in India. He was honoured by the Government of India, in 2014, by bestowing on him the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for his services to the field of medicine. He is a part of the COVID-19 Task Force for the state of Maharashtra, India.
Narayana Panicker Kochupillai, popularly known as N. P. Kochupillai, is an Indian clinical endocrinologist, Professor Emeritus of the National Academy of Medical Sciences and a former head of the department of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, known to have contributed to the understanding of endemically prevalent endocrine and metabolic disorders. A winner of 2002 Dr. B. C. Roy Award, he was honoured by the Government of India in 2003 with Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award.
Daniel Joshua Drucker is a Canadian endocrinologist. A Fellow of the Royal Society, he is a professor of medicine at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto. He is known for his research into intestinal hormones and their use in the treatment of diabetes, obesity, and other metabolic diseases, as well as intestinal failure.
Ieuan Arwel Hughes is a British paediatric endocrinologist who is an emeritus professor of paediatrics at the University of Cambridge. Hughes is most notable for long-standing research into disorders of sex development (DSD), established one of the largest and most comprehensive databases of cases of DSD including publishing the Consensus on DSD management framework which, barely eight years after its publication, is now already accepted worldwide as the framework for care of patients and families with DSD.
Sir Douglas Vernon Hubble was a paediatric endocrinologist, general practitioner, and professor of paediatrics and dean of medicine at the University of Birmingham. Hubble was principally notable for research into paediatric endocrinology and publishing a number of papers on the subject, which gave him a national reputation.
Thomas Martin Barratt was a British paediatrician and professor of paediatric nephrology. Barratt was most notable for developing a specialist service for children with kidney diseases in Britain, bringing peritoneal dialysis, haemodialysis, and later renal transplantation to ever younger children. Barratt was an early advocate for multidisciplinary care and developed a model that was later taken up by many other specialist centres across the world. His research led to a new treatments for many types of childhood kidney diseases., and for research into childhood Nephrotic syndrome and Hemolytic-uremic syndrome.
Sir Albert Aynsley-Green is a paediatric endocrinologist and Professor Emeritus of Child Health at University College London. Aynsley-Green is most notable for advancing the idea of the rights of children. He was appointed to the first Children's Commissioner for England in March 2005, serving in this position until 2009. During this time he launched an initiative to publicize and combat bullying.
Syed Faisal Ahmed is British physician and academic who holds the Samson Gemmell Chair of Child Health at the University of Glasgow. Ahmed is an honorary consultant paediatric endocrinologist at the Royal Hospital for Children Glasgow. and was appointed to this post in 2012, being the seventh clinical academic to hold this endowed professorship which is the oldest chair of paediatrics in the United Kingdom.
Eleftheria Maratos-Flier is an American endocrinologist, and emerita Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, best known for her expertise in the pathophysiology and prevention of obesity-related metabolic disorders, and for her discoveries on the neuroendocrine control of feeding behaviour. She is a contributing author to known textbooks and reviews in internal medicine, endocrinology, and physiology. Her marriage with professor Jeffrey Flier, was noted by Forbes as a lasting and productive bond between eminent medical scholars. They have two adult daughters who are also physicians. She is also known as Terry Maratos-Flier.
Richard Henry Reeve White was a paediatric nephrologist, emeritus Professor of Paediatric Nephrology from the University of Birmingham morphologist and archivist for British Association for Paediatric Nephrology.
Nathalie Mühlstein Josso (1934-2022) was a pediatric endocrinologist who studied variations in genital development before birth, including intersex. She was the first to identify anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), a hormone that plays a major role in the development of male sex in fetuses by suppressing the development of female reproductive organs. Josso also later identified AMH in adult women, enabling the development of tests of ovarian reserve.
Margaret Rosemary Zacharin is an Australian adult and paediatric endocrinology physician and researcher. She has won several major awards and held significant leadership roles in several Australian universities.
Christine Philippa Rodda is an Australian paediatric endocrinologist and academic. She is an Associate Professor of Paediatrics at the Melbourne Medical School – Western Campus, Sunshine Hospital. Rodda is known for her research on metabolic bone disease and vitamin D deficiency in children.
