Screening infertile women for subclinical hypothyroidism

✍ Scribed by Strickland, Daniel M.; Whitted, Wayne A.; Wians, Frank H.

• Book ID: 122515368
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 323 KB
• Volume: 163
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1097-6868
• DOI: 10.1016/S0002-9378(11)90744-3

✦ Synopsis

Reply

To the Editors: Although increased circulating endoxin may be expected to inhibit sodium-potassium adenosine triphosphatase activity and thereby reduce intracellular sodium levels, our data do not support this. However, our findings are consistent with a previous report that chronic exposure to digoxin does not result in reduced sodium pump activity or increased intracellular sodium levels, although short-term treatment does result in these effects. 1 In addition, we found that both plasma endoxin and erythrocyte sodium-potassium adenosine triphosphatase activity exhibit significant increases during pregnancy! Further, there is a significant positive correlation between the two (r = 0.72) rather than the expected inverse relationship, suggesting that the sodium-potassium adenosine triphosphatase exhibits an adaptive response to the high endoxin levels. 2 Thus, these data further support the finding that increased endoxin levels in patients with preeclampsia does not result in a chronic suppression of sodium-potassium adenosine triphosphatase activity and thereby an increase in intracellular sodium levels.