Endocrinology · 1943 · 22 citations · 0 references
Life SciencesEndocrinologyPhysiologyNeuroendocrinologyNutritional PhysiologySteroid BiochemistryAdrenal EndocrinologyAdrenal HormonesAdrenal Steroid HormonesAdrenal SteroidogenesisRodent EndocrinologySteroid MetabolismAdrenal Cortex FunctionAdrenal Cortex PhysiologyAdrenal Cortex SteroidogenesisAdrenal Cortical HormonesAdrenal MorphologyAdrenal Steroid MetabolismAdrenocortical SecretionNitrogen Economy
AREVIEW of the literature of adrenal hypertrophy (Tepperman, Engel and Long, 1943) revealed that many of the circumstances in which - such hypertrophy occurs are characterizied by either a relative or absolute increase in the rate of protein catabolism. This fact recurred so insistently that the reviewers have classified the ‘causes’ of adrenal hypertrophy according to the characteristics of their nitrogen economy. On the basis of this suggestion, and in the light of the hypothetical chemical sites of action of the cortical steroids of the corticosterone type, experiments were devised to test the effect of high protein diets on adrenal size. This study was undertaken in an effort to determine whether or notevidence of increased adrenal cortical activity could be secured in animals which were forced to derive a large proportion of their carbohydrate from protein. In addition to morphologic evidence of increased cortical activity