Sidney Pearson

Effects of androgenic steroids in aging individuals.

The process of aging is one of involution, degeneration and senescence, beginning in no specific or given year of life and usually proceeding in an orderly fashion, albeit with considerable individual variation. In a sense, therefore, aging may be looked upon as an accentuation of the catabolic as contrasted with the anabolic phase of metabolism. Throughout life there is a constant adjustment between the tearing down and the building up of tissue, and the movement and utilization of materials necessary to meet the energy requirements of the body. The androgens play a vital role in the processes concerned with anabolism. They have been shown to further the storage of nitrogen in the muscular structures of the body, and also in the protein matrix of the skeleton (1-5). For this purpose protein building blocks must be furnished; apparently the androgens cannot prepare such protein moieties. Therefore, preliminary to anabolic processes controlled by androgens, other factors, probably including the “glucocorticoid” hormones of the adrenal cortex, are necessary for the maintenance of a pool of readily available protein moieties. In the presence of androgens, the protein moieties are anabolized to form muscular and skeletal protein. The catabolism of such protein may later be initiated by circulating thyroid hormone or certain adrenocortical steroids which have a specific influence in making the protein available for energy (6). Thus, the nitrogen balance of the body, and the constant turnover of protein which is necessary for normal satisfactory muscular performance is, at least in part, a hormonally regulated activity not delegated to a single gland, but apparently requiring the balanced action of gonad, adrenal and thyroid. Furthermore, pituitary function varies, as one phase of life gives way to another. Consequently, as gonadal function decreases, changes in the hormonal activity of both the pituitary and the adrenal appear. The altered responses of the adrenal cortex seem to compensate partially for the loss of gonadal function, and an asymptomatic readjustment of the body