Compassionate, Expert Care for Children and Adolescents With Hormone Disorders
Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism
Members of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism conduct over 8,000 patient visits annually, providing comprehensive care for infants to young adults with issues including congenital adrenal hyperplasia, obesity, diabetes, and disorders of the thyroid, growth, puberty, bone, and pituitary gland. Through our clinical programs we:
- Provide endocrine care to obese adolescents who are considering or have undergone bariatric surgery at Columbia’s Adolescent Bariatric Surgery Program
- Evaluate and treat children with bone disease through our pediatric bone mineral density service
- Provide state-of-the-art care with nationally leading outcomes to children and adolescents with diabetes mellitus (DM) at The Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center. The center’s five pediatric endocrinologists, devoted specifically to DM, offer an insulin pump program and educational programs for children with DM, their families, and caregivers
- Screen newborns as a designated site for the NYS Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) and Newborn Thyroid Screening programs
Research
We are committed to clinical research in diabetes, obesity, adolescent bariatric surgery, polycystic ovary syndrome, premature adrenarche, bone disorders, and infant growth and body composition (including the impact of COVID-19 on infant growth). The Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center is involved in multiple national studies, including Trialnet and TODAY.
Our division is in the 18th consecutive year of our National Institutes of Health (NIH) T-32 training grant. This grant funding allows us to train the next generation of leaders and physician-scientists in pediatric endocrinology. Columbia is one of about a dozen pediatric endocrine divisions in the U.S. to have secured this level of support.
Our research portfolio remains strong. Priorities include investigating bone health in growth hormone deficient children, body composition in infants born to COVID-19 positive mothers, ovarian abnormalities in states of hyperandrogenism, such as polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), and new delivery methods for the treatment of diabetes. Grants from the NIH, industry funders, and private donors enable this progress.
The groundbreaking work of this division continues to be published in peer reviewed journals. In 2022, we have had 23 manuscripts accepted for publication and have continued to present nationally and internationally on topics in pediatric endocrinology—mostly via videoconference.
Education
Through our fellowship program we educate and train physician-scientists to be experts and leaders in the field. Fellows have the opportunity to participate in state-of-the-art patient care and high-quality research training and have access to multiple university-based educational activities to enhance their research activities. Our ongoing NIH-sponsored T32 training grant, now entering its 18th year, provides funds for fellows to formulate and execute a research plan under the guidance of a mentor. Our mentors include world-renowned scientists who also have significant research funding.
Promotions
- Natasha Leibel, MD - Associate Professor of Pediatrics, and named Director of Pediatric Diabetes
- Aviva Sopher, MD, MS - Associate Professor of Pediatrics
- Ileana Vargas, MD, MS - Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Honors and Awards
Sharon Oberfield, MD
- Chaired the 3-day 50th Anniversary Meeting of the Pediatric Endocrine Society (PES) virtually, with close to 1,200 participants. Division of Pediatric Endocrinology fellows presented their work at virtual poster sessions..
- Received the Exceptional Women in Medicine 2022 award, Acknowledging Outstanding Accomplishments And Dedication To The Field Of Medicine from the American Registry
Vidhu Thaker, MD
- One of 15 Columbia early-career physician-scientists to receive VP&S Promising Clinician Scientists Awards
Patricia Vuguin, MD
- Serves on the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Fellowship Directors.
- Participated in the overseas endocrine symposia in August in Costa Rica, run by the Pediatric Endocrine Society
Ileana Vargas, MD
- Received an Innovation Nucleation Fund grant from Pediatrics to create a culinary kitchen focused on ethnic diets to reduce obesity through healthy choices
Major Grants
- NIH T-32 training grant.
- COVID-19 Fund to Retain Clinician-Scientists Grants Program. Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Awardee: Vidhu Thaker, MD.
- Environmental bisphenols and risk of hypospadias. The Collective Power Challenge Grant. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Principal Investigator: Sharon Oberfield, MD; Co-Investigator: Cara Tillotson, DO.
- Determinants of zonation of liver inflammation and fibrosis in pediatric NASH. CaMPR-ISP grant. Co-Investigator: Jonathan Steinman, MD, PhD.
- Effect of puberty blockers on cognition and psychosocial functioning in transgender and gender nonconforming adolescents. Lawrence R Stanberry Ped Fellows Research Grant. Awardee: Presley Nichols, MD.
Selected Publications
Oberfield S, assoc ed. The history of pediatric endocrinology: Celebrating 50 years of the Pediatric Endocrine Society. Horm Res Paediatr. 2022; 95(6).
Harnois-Leblanc S, Hernandez MI, Codner E, Cassorla F, Oberfield SE, Leibel NI, Mathew RP, Ten S, Magoffin DA, Lane CJ, Goran MI, Azziz R, Baillargeon JP, Geller DH. Profile of daughters and sisters of women with polycystic ovary syndrome: The role of proband's glucose tolerance. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2022;107(3)e912–e923. doi:10.1210/clinem/dgab812. PMID: 34752621.
Siegel EL, Kezios KL, Houghton L, Pereira-Eshraghi C, Cirillo P, Cohn BA, Factor-Litvak P. Could maternal thyroid function during pregnancy affect daughters' age at menarche through child growth? A mediation analysis. Reprod Toxicol. 2021;107:33–39. doi:10.1016/j.reprotox.2021.11.004. PMID: 34808459.
Kalkwarf HJ, Shepherd JA, Hans D, Rodriguez EG, Kindler K, Lappe JM, Oberfield SE, Winer KK, Zemel BS. Trabecular bone score reference values for children and adolescents according to age, sex, and ancestry. J Bone Miner Res. 2022;37(4):776–785.
Pereira-Eshraghi CF, Tao R, Chiuzan CC, Zhang Y, Shen W, Lerner JP, Oberfield SE, Sopher AB. Ovarian follicle count by magnetic resonance imaging is greater in adolescents and young adults with polycystic ovary syndrome than in controls. F S Rep. 2022;3(2):102–109. doi: 10.1016/j.xfre.2022.01.008. PMID: 35789714; PMCID: PMC9250127.
Weiner A, Nichols P, Rahming V, Gopalakrishnamoorthy M, Oberfield SE, Fennoy I. Severe symptomatic vitamin D deficiency during COVID-19 "stay at-home-orders'' in New York City. Glob Pediatr Health. 2022;9:2333794X221086466. doi: 10.1177/2333794X221086466. PMID: 35372639; PMCID: PMC8969494.
Van Name MA, Kanapka LG, DiMeglio LA, Miller KM, Albanese-O'Neill A, Commissariat P, Corathers SD, Harrington KR, Hilliard ME, Anderson BJ, Kelley JC, Laffel LM, MacLeish SA, Nathan BM, Tamborlane WV, Wadwa RP, Willi SM, Williams KM, Wintergerst KA, Woerner S, Wong JC, DeSalvo DJ. Long-term continuous glucose monitor use in very young children with type 1 diabetes: One-year results from the SENCE study. J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2022 Mar:19322968221084667. doi: 10.1177/19322968221084667. Online ahead of print. PMID: 35343269.
Staimez LR, Kipling LM, Nina Ham J, Legvold BT, Jackson SL, Wilson PWF, Rhee MK, Phillips LS. Potential misclassification of diabetes and prediabetes in the U.S.: Mismatched HbA1c and glucose in NHANES 2005–2016. Diabetes Res Clin Pract. 2022;189:109935. doi: 10.1016/j.diabres.2022.109935. PMID: 35662612.
Reyes Diaz JV, Jin Y, Garber K, Cossen KM, Li Y, Jin P, Li H, Ham JN. A homozygous exonic variant leading to exon skipping in ABCC8 as the cause of severe congenital hyperinsulinism. Am J Med Genet A. 2022;188(8):2429–2433. doi: 10.1002/ajmg.a.62843. Epub 2022 May 27. PMID: 35621279.
Sena C, Iannello G, Skowronski AA, Dannheim K, Cheung L, Agrawal PB, Hirschhorn JN, Zeitler P, LeDuc CA, Stratigopoulos G, Thaker VV. Endocrine and behavioural features of Lowe syndrome and their potential molecular mechanisms. J Med Genet. 2022;59(12):1171–1178. doi: 10.1136/jmedgenet-2022-108490. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35803701.
Solomon MD, Escobar GJ, Lu Y, Schlessinger D, Steinman JB, Steinman L, Lee C, Liu VX. Risk of severe COVID-19 infection among adults with prior exposure to children. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2022;119(33):e2204141119. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2204141119. Epub 2022 Jul 27. PMID: 35895714.
Patel A, Iannello G, Diaz AG, Sirabella D, Thaker V, Corneo B. Efficient Cas9-based genome editing using CRISPR analysis webtools in severe early-onset-obesity patient-derived iPSCs. Curr Protoc. 2022;2(8):e519. doi: 10.1002/cpz1.519. PMID: 35950852.
Gandica R, Weinstock RS, Gunaratne M, Arslanian S, Doherty LK, Geffner ME, Laffel L, Higgins J. Long-term retention of young adult study participants with youth-onset type 2 diabetes: Results from the TODAY2 study. Horm Res Paediatr. 2022 Nov. doi: 10.1159/000528205. Online ahead of print.
Oberfield SE, Rogol AD, Miller WL. Celebrating 50 years of the Pediatric Endocrine Society (PES): Histories of pediatric endocrine topics. Horm Res Paediatr. 2022;95:509. doi: 10.1159/000526585.
Oberfield SE, Rogol AD, Miller WL. A brief history of the Pediatric Endocrine Society (PES). Horm Res Paediatr. 2022;95:510–514. doi: 10.1159/000526439.
Witchel SF, Azziz R, Oberfield SE. History of polycystic ovary syndrome, premature adrenarche, and hyperandrogenism in pediatric endocrinology. Horm Res Paediatr. 2022;95:557–567. doi: 10.1159/000526722.
Oberfield SE. Epilogue. Horm Res Paediatr. 2022;95:657. doi:10.1159/000526591.
Lustig R, H, Fennoy I: The history of obesity research. Horm Res Paediatr. 2022;95:638–648. doi: 10.1159/000526520.
Richter LR, Albert BI, Zhang L, Ostropolets A, Zitsman JL, Fennoy I, Albers DJ, Hripcsak G. Data assimilation on mechanistic models of glucose metabolism predicts glycemic states in adolescents following bariatric surgery. Front Physiol. 2022;13:923704. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2022.923704.
Abstracts:
Weiner A, Agarwal S, Burghard AC, Sopher AB, Zitsman JL, Oberfield SE, Fennoy I. Changes in bone mineral density by DXA and HRpQCT in adolescent females with obesity following sleeve gastrectomy. Poster presentation. Pediatric Endocrine Society PES 2022.
Rahming, V, Goland, R, Chung, W, Gandica, R, Vuguin, P, Oberfield, S, Milner, JD. The usefulness of whole exome sequencing in identifying monogenic autoimmune diabetes in patients with additional immune dysregulation. Poster presentation. Pediatric Endocrine Society PES 2022.
Nichols P, Whyte K, Mollicone I, Kyle M, Oberfield SE, Dumitriu D, Gallagher D, Fennoy I. Effects of in utero SARS-CoV-2 exposure on prospective anthropometric and body composition measurements in a subgroup of the COVID-19 mother baby outcomes (COMBO) cohort. Presidential poster presentation. Pediatric Endocrine Society PES 2022.
Burghard AC, Fisher AS, Rahming VL, Zitsman J, Oberfield SE, Fennoy I. The relationship between baseline metabolic factors and post-surgical weight loss outcomes in adolescents undergoing laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy. Abstract accepted for poster presentation. Endocrine Society ENDO 2022.
Chen A, Bernier A, Burgert T, Davis V, Geller D, Paprocki E, Shah R, Witchel S, Pereira-Eshraghi C, Sopher A, Cree-Green M, Torchen L. Heterogeneity of clinical presentation of adolescent PCOS attributable to distinct subtypes. Oral presentation at ENDO 2022, Atlanta GA.
Thaker VV, Gidding S, Keith S, Falkner B. Relationship of shape of glucose OGTT curves with measures of cardiometabolic health in African American adolescents. Abstract presented at ENDO 2022. The Endocrine Society Annual Meeting, June 2022, Atlanta, GA.
Mitchel JA, Bradfield J, McCormack SE, Chesi A, Kalkwarf HJ, Lappe JM, Oberfield SE, Duren D, Shepherd JA, Hankenson K, Kelly A, Zemel B, Grant SFA. A polygenic risk score linked to fracture reduction in adults is associated with enhanced bone density in childhood. Abstract in progress for submission to American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Thaker V, Gu W, Cao S, Salem R. Genome-wide association study analysis of glucose response in oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). Abstract submitted to American Society of Human Genetics Meeting, October 2022, Los Angeles, CA.
Nichols P, Tillotson C, Rahming V, Steinman J, Thaker V, Vuguin P, Oberfield S, Torres A, Ham NJ. Thyroid monitoring trends following iodine exposure during cardiac intervention: practices at a large urban children’s hospital. Oral presentation. International Meeting of Pediatric Endocrinology 2023, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Highlights
Pandemic May Have Increased Likelihood of Early Puberty Among Children
Aviva Sopher, MD was interviewed by WWL News, a New Orleans CBS affiliate, about the rise in early puberty among children following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Addressing Disorders of Puberty in Girls
Sharon Oberfield, MD and Aviva Sopher, MD, MS provide a comprehensive review of abnormalities in pubertal development in females and potential treatments to consider.