The theme of the upcoming American Association of Clinical Endocrinology (AACE) Annual Meeting 2026 in Las Vegas is “Viva Nutrition! Advancing Endocrine Practice From the Inside Out.” 

“I think nutrition sometimes doesn’t get the attention that it should, quite frankly, and yet it’s such a big part of the whole endocrine treatment management process that we thought it was time to really focus in on it,” AACE president Dace L. Trence, MD, told Medscape Medical News.

Indeed, meeting program chair Rifka Schulman-Rosenbaum, MD, added, “Nutrition is just something that is so intertwined with many aspects of endocrinology, so we decided to target the theme around the associations of nutrition with endocrine disorders, specifically nutrition and chronic disease…but also a little bit more outside of the box.”

Taking place from April 22 to 24, 2026, the meeting will address a wide spectrum of endocrine topics, including diabetes, thyroid and adrenal disorders, cardiometabolic disease, bone health, and the use of AI in clinical practice. But the main theme this year is clinical nutrition and its relevance not only to obesity and diabetes but also to lipid disorders, bone and thyroid disease, and other endocrine conditions. 

The first day’s keynote, “Nutrition and Chronic Disease: A Hero’s Journey in AACE,” will be delivered by former AACE president Jeffrey L. Mechanick, MD, professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, New York City. And several other sessions will feature or touch on nutrition as part of clinical management. 

Also featured: Thyroid and Type 1 Diabetes 

Other featured plenary speakers will address three additional hot topics in endocrinology. Shashank R. Joshi, consultant at the Department of Endocrinology of Sir H. N. Reliance Foundation Hospital, Mumbai, India, will discuss “Impact of Iodine on Thyroid Autoimmunity, Goiter, and Oncogenesis.”

This “is definitely an area that requires better understanding,” said Schulman-Rosenbaum, highlighting Joshi’s expertise on this topic. 

Linda A. DiMeglio, MD, professor of pediatrics and chief of pediatric endocrinology at Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, will present “Early-Stage Type 1 Diabetes: Screening, Monitoring, Treatments, and Future Directions.”

This is an area of growing appreciation, Trence said. But the question of who you screen is still ongoing, he noted. “And how do you actually counsel people who show up with positive markers?... How do you approach a treatment that is not prevention, but a delay?”

And then, of course, there’s the insurance issue, as it’s terribly costly,” he added.

A third plenary, by Antonio C. Bianco, MD, PhD, dean of the John Sealy School of Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Texas, will address “Deconstructing the TSH Feedback Loop: Integrating Deiodinase Biology into the Management of Hypothyroidism.”

Guidelines, AI, New Research, and Debates 

Four sessions will be devoted to the use of AI in endocrinology, including one specifically regarding diabetes.

Other sessions will summarize recently published guidelines on hypoparathyroidism, thyroid nodules, type 2 diabetes (T2D), and dyslipidemia. “One of the things we do at AACE is focus on the clinical aspect of taking these recommendations and applying them to our patients,” Schulman-Rosenbaum said. 

Twelve oral abstract presentations of new research will span a range of endocrine topics, including cardiovascular mortality among people with hyperthyroidism, safety and efficacy of lonapegsomatropin in adults with growth hormone deficiency, use of insulin pump therapy during hospitalization, and co-secretion of cortisol and aldosterone in individuals with resistant hypertension (the MOMENTUM trial). More than 600 other abstracts will be presented as posters.

In point-counterpoint debates, speakers will argue for and against the use of continuous glucose monitoring in gestational diabetes, anabolic vs bisphosphonate as the first treatment for osteoporosis, and whether it’s time to stop relying on BMI to define obesity. Another debate on the pros and cons of weekly insulins will be timely as the FDA just approved the first once-weekly insulin in the US for T2D.

Clinical Pearls for All

Regardless of which sessions attendees choose, they will take away information that will be usable on their first day back in the office, both Trence and Schulman-Rosenbaum promised.

According to Trence, “I think everyone is looking for clinical pearls. That’s why AACE stands out among so many medical conferences: the emphasis on medical pearls.”

In addition, she noted, “There’s an attempt to provide information that’s not so widely available on the web. Everybody looks at the web and certainly at journals. But we share more that has applicability.”

Schulman-Rosenbaum put it this way: “All the sessions will be exciting. Depending on which session you attend, you’re going to take home different things, but it’s all going to be very clinically relevant and worthwhile for patient care.”

Trence reported having no disclosures. Schulman-Rosenbaum reported being an advisor for Sanofi.

Miriam E. Tucker is a freelance journalist based in the Washington, DC area. She is a regular contributor to Medscape, with other work appearing in the Washington Post, NPR’s Shots blog, and Diatribe. She is on X @MiriamETucker and BlueSky @miriametucker.bsky.social.