In the last decade, evidence of endocrine disruption in biota exposed to environmental pollutants has raised serious concern. Human cell-based bioassays have been developed to evaluate induced androgenic and estrogenic activities of chemical compounds. However, bioassays have been sparsely applied to environmental samples. In this study we present data on sex hormone activities in the green mus...

Plasma obtained and frozen in 1972-1974 from 1,009 white men (40-79 years old) who have been followed for 12 years was examined for endogenous sex hormone levels according to prevalent or subsequent cardiovascular disease. In these older men, no sex hormone measured (testosterone, androstenedione, estrone, or estradiol) was significantly associated with known cardiovascular disease at baseline ...

Introduction: Keratoconus is an ectasia that results in corneal thinning in central and paracentral areas of affected corneas. This disease occurs most frequently in young males, underlying a potential role of sex hormones in its pathogenesis. By examining the expression of sex hormone receptors, this study aimed to reveal potential roles of the sex hormone receptors in keratoconus pathogenesis...

Patients with adrenal insufficiency have a life-threatening risk of adrenal crisis, thus preventing adrenal crisis is an important clinical issue. In order to clarify the risk factors for adrenal crisis, the medical records of 137 patients with established adrenal insufficiency were retrospectively investigated. The explanatory variables analyzed were gender, etiology of hypoadrenalism, class o...

Cognitive performance in untreated early onset gender identity disorder (GID) patients might correspond to their born sex and not to their perceived gender. As a current mode of intervention, cross-sex hormone treatment causes considerable physical changes in GID patients. We asked, as has been suggested, whether this treatment skews cognitive performance towards that of the acquired sex. Somat...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to evaluate changes in sex hormone metabolism in patients with threatened miscarriage. MATERIAL AND METHODS We recruited 73 women in early pregnancy (6-8 weeks of gestation) and divided them into the following 2 groups based on whether they had vaginal bleeding: group A (n=34), the threatened abortion group; and group B (n=39), the normal pregnancy group. Hu...

BACKGROUND Increasing scientific evidence suggests that exposure to phthalates during pregnancy may be associated with an elevated risk of adverse reproductive outcomes such as preterm birth. Maternal endocrine disruption across pregnancy may be one pathway mediating some of these relationships. We investigated whether urinary phthalate metabolites were associated with maternal serum thyroid (f...

Commensurate with the decline in many crustacean populations has been an accumulation in reports of sexually ambiguous individuals within these populations. The cause of gynandromorphism or intersex among crustaceans is unknown. We show that gynandromorphism in the branchiopod crustacean Daphnia magna is initiated by the sex-determining hormone methyl farnesoate when levels of the hormone are i...