THE RELATION OF THE SUPRARENALS TO CHOLESTEROL METABOLISM

Abstract

It has been shown by histologic and chemical studies that the cortex of the suprarenal is particularly rich in lipoids, especially cholesterol and its esters. It has also been demonstrated that these cortical cells hypertrophy during the hypercholesterinemia of pregnancy¹ and that pregnant animals survive fatal extirpation of the suprarenals much longer than nonpregnant animals.² In addition to this, several workers have noted in the experimental hypercholesterinemia due to high cholesterol feeding, and also in the pathologic and physiologic hypercholesterinemias, that there has been a constant increase in the lipoid content of the cortex of the suprarenals. Wacker and Hueck³ have demonstrated that animals that had been fed cholesterol preoperatively definitely lived longer after bilateral suprarenalectomy. These observations, together with the work of Chauffard and his school in France, and the German workers (Aschoff, Rothschild, Landau and McNee) strongly suggest that some definite relationship exists between the suprarenal glands and