Influence of sex and glucocorticoid hormones on 3H cholesterol uptake in the aortic wall and 3H adrenaline in the brain.

The mechanisms involved in the atherogenesis process and the connection of the latter with stress were studied, by trying to elucidate the difference in the response of the two sexes to the causative factors. To this purpose, the role of the sex hormones (testosterone, estradiol, progesterone) and glucocorticoids (hydrocortisone hemisuccinate) in 3H cholesterol uptake in the aortic wall and 3H adrenaline in the brain was investigated. In males, the results show that these hormones favoured the uptake of the two markers whose level was significantly raised (p greater than 0.05; p greater than 0.01) as against the controls all along the 20 days of treatment. In females, the level of 3H cholesterol in the aorta and 3H adrenaline in the brain had a statistical significance (p greater than 0.05) only in the first days of treatment but after the 6th day it began to decline.