The disease which is often also associated with gigantism, is difficult to diagnose in the early stages and is frequently missed for many years, until changes in external features, especially of the face, become noticeable with the median time from the development of initial symptoms to diagnosis being twelve years. Cushings syndrome is a hormonal disorder that causes hypercortisolism, which is elevated levels of cortisol in the blood. Cushings disease (CD) is the most frequent cause of Cushings syndrome, responsible for approximately 70% of cases. CD results when a pituitary adenoma causes excessive secretion of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) that stimulates the adrenal glands to produce excessive amounts of cortisol.Cushings disease may cause fatigue, weight gain, fatty deposits around the abdomen and lower back (truncal obesity) and face ("moon face"), stretch marks (striae) on the skin of the abdomen, thighs, breasts, and arms, hypertension, glucose intolerance, and various infections. In women, it may cause excessive growth of facial hair (hirsutism) and in men erectile dysfunction. Psychiatric manifestations may include depression, anxiety, easy irritability, and emotional instability. It may also result in various cognitive difficulties.Hyperpituitarism is a disease of the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland which is usually caused by a functional pituitary adenoma and results in hypersecretion of adenohypophyseal hormones such as growth hormone; prolactin; thyrotropin; luteinizing hormone; follicle-stimulating hormone; and adrenocorticotropic hormone.
A fetish (derived from the French fétiche, which comes from the Portuguese feitiço, and this in turn from Latin facticius, artificial and facere, to make) is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a human-made object that has power over others. Essentially, fetishism is the attribution of inherent value, or powers, to an object. Historiography
The term fetish has evolved from an idiom used to describe a type of object created in the interaction between European travelers and Africans in the early modern period to an analytical term that played a central role in the perception and study of non-Western art in general and African art in particular. William Pietz, who, in 1994, conducted an extensive ethno-historical study of the fetish, argues that the term originated in the coast of West Africa during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pietz distinguishes between, on the one hand, actual African objects that may be called fetishes in Europe, together with the indigenous theories of them, and on the other hand, "fetish", an idea, and an idea of a kind of object, to which the term above applies.According to Pietz, the post-colonial concept of "fetish" emerged from the encounter between Europeans and Africans in a very specific historical context and in response to African material culture.