Added value of this study
adrenal adenomas, shivering
ADRENAL ADENOMA
We performed a placebo controlled, double-blinded randomised, cross-over trial in 16 healthy male volunteers. We demonstrate that GC treatment increases resting energy expenditure (REE) but does not affect cold-induced BAT activity. Importantly, participants took a daily dose of 40 mg prednisone or placebo over a week which is considerably higher than in the previous trials but reflects a typical dosage used in clinical care. All participants were pre-screened to ensure that cold-induced BAT activity was present at baseline to ensure that we could find a potential reduction in BAT activity. Additionally, we used a stern cooling protocol to elicit maximum BAT activity while avoiding shivering. We corroborated our findings by analysing the plasma metabolome and gene expression in supraclavicular BAT. Moreover, we present data from an observational trial in patients taking GCs for at least six weeks which is in line with the findings from our interventional trial. Besides, we determined the expression of BAT markers in peri-adrenal adipose tissue of patients who underwent adrenalectomy for benign adrenal adenomas with and without autonomous cortisol secretion. Cortisol secretion did not affect gene expression in these patients.