ACTA ENDOCRINOLOGICA (BUC)

Metabolic Syndrome (MS) is a polymorph disease with a high frequency especially in older age. Any randomized study with nonhospitalized subjects might include those bearing MS, that greatly influenced the final results. Eighty subjects aged 50-75 years (38 men and 42 women) had consumed daily 4 caps of purified Embryonary Peptides (EP) for 60 days. The samples of blood from each subject were obtained before and after administration. Therefore, each subject was his own control. In all subjects, after administration, regardless of the MS presence, total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol had decreased approximately 30 % as compared with the initial values. Significant decreases of insulin and cortisol were also observed, but associated with modifications of PSA, CEA and IGF-l. The magnitude of these changes was lower in subjects with MS. The long-lasting modifications induced by EP seem to have an adaptive-regulatory character, affecting the lipid metabolism (already modified in MS), as well as some pathways from steroid biosynthesis. Thus, EP might act similarly to some stimulatory factors, such as IGF-1, in a reversible stage of MS.