 |
 |
Dear Friends I was taught that calcitonin protected the skeleton in times of severe stress or deprivation, including pregnancy, not least pregnancy in women suffering from malnutrition, as in some less developed countries. One of the oddities of calcitonin is that salmon calcitonin is more potent in man. Usually the hormonal hierarchy, when it exists, works the other way, as for GH. Calcitonin is an excellent markar for MTC, but may have been superceded now. Kind regards Lars Breimer -----Original Message----- From: Aubrey Blumsohn [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: 02 August 2000 01:03 To: ACB_List Subject: Re: Low magnesium - High calcitonin? Calcitonin is important if you're a rat. If you're human .................... noooo. Aubrey ----- Original Message ----- From: <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2000 8:25 PM Subject: Re: Low magnesium - High calcitonin? Aubrey Blumsohn wrote: AB> Why should measurement of calcitonin be "equally important to AB> measurement of PTH I thought that it was well-known that calcitonin is equally important as PTH in calcium regulation, and that these two hormones acts as a double servo system. An increase of ionized calcium, e g caused by intake of milk, will immediately increase calcitonin and simultaneously decrease PTH and vice versa. This double servo system is very effective and maintains ionized calcium within a very narrow range. In fact ionized calcium is the most fine-tuned analyte in blood. Of two samples taken with an interval of 5 years from 80 healthy objects more than 50% had exactly the same value of calcium ion activity, i e the difference was less than 0.01 mmol/L. None differed more than 0.02 mmol/L, i e 1.6%. This balance can be disturbed in pathological conditions. Traumatic injuries, alkohol abuse and probably a lot of other factors can cause increased calcitonin levels, which cause a plummeting of ionized calcium, in extreme cases causing heart arrhytmia. AB> Calcitonin is a (largely) irrelevant to AB> physiology and pathophysiology in man (a good tumor marker AB> though, and pharmacologically useful). We don't want to encourage AB> our users to do too many silly things. I disagree! Calcitonin is very a very important hormone, and I cannot see any reason not to measure it. Especially cases like that originally described, where the patient had low magnesium, low calcium and had an alkohol abuse. Mr Sten Öhman, PhD %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%