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Background Acute thyrotoxic myopathy (ATM) is a rare and potentially lethal complication of thyrotoxicosis. The typical clinical symptoms of ATM are characterized by bulbar paralysis. Reports of the successful treatment of ATM are sporadic due to its low incidence. Subacute thyroiditis (SAT) is one of the etiology of hyperthyroidism. The intrathyroidal injection of glucocorticoids is a novel administration route to treat subacute thyroiditis and reduce the resulting adverse reactions. However, no English literature has reported Chinese with ATM and SAT overlap. Here, we report a Chinese rare with ATM and SAT that recovered from a different and novel route of glucocorticoid administration. Case presentation A 23-year-old woman visited our hospital with a two-year history of progressive weakness of her bulbar muscles, hoarseness, cough when swallowing, dysphagia, and a one-month history of recurrent painful swelling of the thyroid gland. She was diagnosed with ATM, chronic thyrotoxic myopathy (CTM), Graves' ophthalmopathy (GO) due to Graves' disease (GD), and (SAT). After she was treated with a combination of low-dose glucocorticoids, antithyroid drugs (ATDs), propranolol, and ultrasound-guided percutaneous intrathyroidal injection of glucocorticoids, the bulbar paralysis, proximal myopathy, and neck pain simultaneously improved without recurrence during follow-up. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case report of a patient with ATM, CTM, GD, and GO treated by administering a combination of low-dose glucocorticoids and antithyroid agents. Conclusions Clinicians should consider ATM and intervene with aggressive glucocorticoid therapy was the key to reversing the progression of ATM when a patient has bulbar paralysis and thyrotoxic symptoms. Ultrasound-guided percutaneous intrathyroidal injection of glucocorticoids is a feasible and operable method of curing SAT. Our case report references the clinical diagnosis and treatment of such cases.

The relationship between serum uric acid (SUA) levels and glycemic indices, including plasma glucose (FPG), 2-hour postload glucose (2h-PG), and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), remains inconclusive. We aimed to explore the associations between glycemic indices and SUA levels in the general Chinese population.The current study was a cross-sectional analysis using the first follow-up survey data from The China Cardiometabolic Disease and Cancer Cohort Study. A total of 105,922 community-dwelling adults aged ≥ 40 years underwent the oral glucose tolerance test and uric acid assessment. The nonlinear relationships between glycemic indices and SUA levels were explored using generalized additive models.A total of 30,941 men and 62,361 women were eligible for the current analysis. Generalized additive models verified the inverted U-shaped association between glycemic indices and SUA levels, but with different inflection points in men and women. The thresholds for FPG, 2h-PG, and HbA1c for men and women were 6.5/8.0 mmol/L, 11.0/14.0 mmol/L, and 6.1/6.5, respectively (SUA levels increased with increasing glycemic indices before the inflection points and then eventually decreased with further increases in the glycemic indices).An inverted U-shaped association was observed between major glycemic indices and uric acid levels in both sexes, while the inflection points were reached earlier in men than in women.

Additional file 1: Table S1. Associations between lipid parameters and eGFR in the total subjects, men and women. Table S2. Associations between TG and UACR in pre-diabetic population.

Purpose: To explore the antihyperglycemic and antioxidant effects of Fructus Hordei Germinatus extract (FHGE) in diabetic rats.Methods: The aqueous extract of FHG was obtained by steeping the dried Fructus Hordei Germinatus in water at 60oC three times, each for 1 h before first drying in an oven and then freeze-drying the last extract thus obtained. Antihyperglycemic effect was measured by blood glucose and plasma insulin levels. Oxidative stress was evaluated in liver and kidney by antioxidant markers, viz, lipid peroxidation (LPO), superoxide dismutase (SOD), reduced glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and catalase (CAT), while blood serum levels of creatinine and urea were also determined in both diabetic control and treated rats.Results: Compared with diabetic rats, oral administration of FHGE at a concentration of 20, 40 and 80 mg/kg daily for 45 days showed a significant decrease in fasting blood glucose (p < 0.05) and increased insulin (p < 0.05) level,. Furthermore, it significantly reduced biochemical parameters (serum creatinine and serum urea, p < 0.05)). The treatment also resulted in significant increase in GSH, GPx (p < 0.05), SOD and CAT (p < 0.05), as well as decreased LPO (p < 0.05) level in the liver and kidney of diabetic rats.Conclusion: The results suggest that FHGE may effectively normalize the impaired antioxidant status in streptozotocin-induced diabetes in a dose-dependent manner. FHGE has a protective effect against lipid peroxidation by scavenging free radicals and is thus capable of reducing the risk of diabetic complications.Keywords: Fructus hordei Germinatus, Diabetic, Antihyperglycemic, Lipid peroxidation, Antioxidant, Fasting blood glucose, Creatinine, Urea

To investigate the characteristics of the dysfunction of islet beta-cell in newly diagnosed type 2 diabetic patients.Intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT) was carried out on 352 newly diagnosed type 2 diabetic patients and 48 subjects with normal glucose tolerance (NGT) and then blood samples were collected 1, 2, 4, 6, and 10 minutes later to measure the plasma glucose and insulin to calculate the acute insulin response (AIR) and the area under the curve of insulin (AUC of insulin), homeostasis model assessment beta-cell (Homabeta), and Homa IR (insulin resistance).The median AIR of the type 2 diabetic patients was -33.7 pmol/L, significantly lower than that of the NGT subjects (6962.0 pmol/L, P0.001). The median AUC of the type 2 diabetic patients was 834.2 pmol/L, significantly lower than that of the NGT subjects (7934.7 pmol/L, P0.001). When the fasting plasma glucose (FPG) of the type 2 diabetic patients was above 7.0 mmol/L, the AIR value was remarkably reduced with a median level of 317.3 pmol/L, and then subsequently disappeared when the FPG was above 9.0 mmol/L. After adjustment of the insulin resistance assessed by HOMA IR, the Homabeta of the type 2 diabetic patients was reduced to be 30% that of the NGT subjects (3.7 +/- 0.9 vs 5.9 +/- 0.9, P0.001). Both the fasting proinsulin concentration and the ratio of fasting proinsulin to fasting insulin of the type 2 diabetic patients were significantly higher those of the NGT subjects (22.6 pmol/L +/- 14.7 pmol/L vs 11.5 pmol/L +/- 7.1 pmol/L, P0.001; and 30.1% +/- 20.5% vs. 12.1% +/- 9.6%, P0.001).The dysfunction of islet beta-cell in newly diagnosed type 2 diabetic patients is mainly represented by the disappearance of AIR and the evident decline of AUC and HOMA B, and the decrease of quality of insulin secretion.