Concepedia

Abstract

EVIDENCE relating the occurrence of certain forms of pathologic uterine bleeding, and of premenstrual tension, chronic cystic mastitis and other disturbances to an excess of estrogen has been accumulating for some years. This evidence was provided originally by the fundamental work of Frank and his collaborators (1–3). Other data have been summarized by several authors in recent authoritative symposia (4, 5). In addition to the investigations there described, Ehrlich (6) has observed in endometrium from patients bleeding abnormally, thrombotic phenomena similar to those illustrated by Zuckerman (7) in the endometrium of castrated monkeys treated with estrogen. By utilizing an ingenious method devised by G. R. Biskind (8, 9), in recent studies on the steroid-inactivating mechanism of the liver in rats, it has been shown that the liver loses its ability to inactivate estrogen in vitamin-Bcomplex deficiency (10–12). Addition of brewer's yeast to the diet was found to restore the inactivating mechanism (12).