Reply to Steichen

We would like to thank Dr. Steichen for his excellent ‘Letter to the Editor’ referring to our recent publication: Is primary aldosteronism associated with diabetes mellitus? Results of the German Conn's Registry [1]. Dr. Steichen reanalyzed our data as well as the data of his own study related to glucose homeostasis in patients with primary aldosteronism. His thorough considerations of differences and similarities between the French and German cohorts lead to a final conclusion, which we totally support: only a well-powered prospective study will fully answer the question whether primary aldosteronism per se alters glucose homeostasis to a clinically significant extent. Such a study should use standardized oral glucose tolerance test with insulin determination to calculate insulin sensitivity/insulin resistance before and after specific intervention for primary aldosteronism. In addition, since environmental and ethnic factors may influence results, the study should be multicentric or even multinational. Such a study would be an ideal endeavor for the fast growing European network for the study of adrenal tumors (http://www.ensat.org; http://www.esf.org/activities/research-networking-programmes).

Martin Reincke MD (for the authors)

References

• 1 Reincke M, Meisinger C, Holle R, Quinkler M, Hahner S, Beuschlein F, Bidlingmaier M, Seissler J, Endres S. Participants of the German Conn's Registry. Is primary aldosteronism associated with diabetes mellitus? Results of the German Conn's Registry.  Horm Metab Res. 2010;  42 435-439

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