STEROID HORMONES AND AGING IN MAN 413 



of the ll-o.\ygenated 17-ketosteioids tends to preponderate in the later 

 decades. The data on the estrogen ratios confirm those previously ob- 

 tained with bioassay measurements. It should be noted, too, that we 

 previously found a tendency of older men to convert administered 11- 

 deoxy-17-ketosteroid to 5a metabolites ( Pincus ef ah, 1955 ) . 



The foregoing analysis suggests that in addition to quantitative 

 decrements with advancing age, alterations in the degree of metabolic 

 transformation of estrogens and 19-carbon steroids may occur. This has 

 led us to re-examine our somewhat amplified data on corticosteroid ex- 

 cretion. First of all, it should be stated that the slight quantitative de- 

 cline in output with advancing age seen for the total corticosteroids of 

 the male population ( see Table I ) is also seen when the major Cortisol 

 metabolites are each separately measured. However, an examination of 

 the relative proportion of THE, THF, and ATHF discloses some sig- 

 nificant differences between younger and older subjects. This is illus- 

 trated in Table I\\ where the percentages of the total a-ketol titers 



TABLE I\' 



Relative Proportions of Tetrahydrocortisone (THE) 

 in the Urinary a-Ketol Mixture 



" Significantly different from younger men; p = 0.01. 

 f Signicantly different from younger women; p = 0.05. 

 * Significantly different from younger .subjects; p — 0.001. 



accountable to THE are presented for young and old subjects. These 

 data indicate that THE is formed at a lesser rate in older persons, i.e., 

 that the degree of conversion of the 11 -hydroxy function to an 11- 

 ketone is diminished in the elderly. 



If one rank-orders the various subjects according to the proportion 

 of THE excreted, one finds an interesting separation (Table V). As 

 might be expected from the data of Table IV, the upper thirds of the 

 younger subjects do not overlap with the upper thirds of the older 

 subjects, and the lower thirds of the older subjects do not overlap with 

 the lower thirds of the younger subjects. The implication of decreased 



