Medicine: Hormones & Disease

New approaches to the control of a variety of diseases, using chemical variants of the body's natural hormones, were reported last week by research teams from Manhattan's Sloan-Kettering Institute.

Trickiest of the hormones has been the one secreted by the pituitary gland, which stimulates growth. Overproduction in childhood makes a giant. In the adult it can cause acromegaly (a localized form of gigantism, with enlargement of the jaw and extremities), can also aggravate diabetes and may speed the spread of cancer originating in the breast. Hitherto, the only way to halt the effects of growth hormone was to destroy the pituitary by radiation or surgery (TIME, May 16, 1955). But Drs. Martin Sonenberg and William Money described a new gimmick that has worked in animals: they treat growth hormone (from cattle) with acetic anhydride, inject the resulting acetylated compound into rats. It appears to be taken up by the animals' systems in a way that blocks the effects of their own growth hormone. This beef-gland product does not work in man, but the researchers are trying to get human growth hormone and treat it the same way.

There was no such animal-human barrier in the work of team members headed by Dr. Leon Hellman. They were dealing with the breakdown products of natural human hormones as they go through the metabolic cycle. From the breakdown of testosterone and related hormones the researchers found two potent derivatives: androsterone and etiocholanolone, with properties different from those of their parent substances. Example: androsterone lowers the level of circulating cholesterol (though testosterone may raise it), may thus be useful in combating atherosclerosis and reducing the danger of heart attacks and many strokes; etiocholanolone triggers a rise in body temperature, may be involved in mysterious fevers and some rheumatic diseases.

Equally surprising was the finding that the body's output and metabolism of these substances depend on how well the thyroid gland is functioning. This close relationship between two supposedly distinct systems had not been suspected. A significant item: the body's output of androsterone declines with advancing years. This may explain why some diseases increase in old age, and suggests a clue to ways of slowing them down.