Quantitative alterations of steroid urinary profiles associated with diabetes mellitus.

Capillary gas chromatography was used for the acquisition of quantitative metabolic profiles of urinary steroids from normal subjects and diabetic patients. Structures of 70 steroid metabolites have been assigned tentatively through mass spectrometry. Quantitative differences between the groups of normal and pathological samples (both males and females) are seen primarily for androsterone, etiocholanolone, dehydroepiandrosterone, 11-oxygenated 17-ketosteroids, corticosteroid metabolites, and a newly discovered metabolite, recently identified as a C26 pentol. The only significant difference between two different age groups of normal males was shown by androsterone.