The Influence of the Thyroid on Adrenal Cortical Function
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THE INFLUENCE OF THE THYROID ON ADRENAL CORTICAL FUNCTION Ralph E. Peterson J Clin Invest. 1958;37(5):736-743. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI103659. Research Article Find the latest version: https://jci.me/103659/pdf THE INFLUENCE OF THE THYROID ON ADRENAL CORTICAL FUNCTION By RALPH E. PETERSON (From the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.) (Submitted for publication October 29, 1957; accepted December 17, 1957) The evidence is quite conclusive from animal of these urinary steroids is either normal or slightly studies that an excess of circulating thyroid hor- increased (20). mone results in adrenal enlargement, and hypo- Thyroidectomized rats (22) and cats (23) are thyroidism produced by surgical thyroidectomy or reported to survive adrenalectomy better than ani- by administration of antithyroid drugs results in mals with an intact thyroid, and administration of adrenal atrophy. This subject has been exten- thyroid to the adrenalectomized cats produced sively reviewed by Money (1). Studies of adrenal sudden death of the animals. Also, in patients size in patients with thyroid disease coming to with Addison's disease, acute adrenal cortical fail- autopsy have yielded conflicting reports. Means ure may be precipitated if thyroid hormone is ad- (2) reported no change in adrenal size in hyper- ministered (24, 25). Primary myxedema has thyroidism, Marine (3) and LeCompte (4) re- been observed in which the presenting findings ported a decrease in size of the adrenal, and Holst were those of adrenal cortical insufficiency, and (5) found enlarged adrenals in some patients with adrenal function returned to normal following hyperthyroidism. Berkheiser (6) reported an ad- thyroid hormone therapy (26). vanced case of hypothyroidism, with atrophy of the With the advent of new and improved methods adrenals and lipoid depletion. for the measurement of certain of the adrenal Measurements of adrenal size may not, how- cortical hormones, and the availability of cortisol- ever, always represent a completely satisfactory 4-C14, it has become possible to further study the "yardstick" for evaluation of adrenal cortical secre- relationship of the thyroid hormone to adrenal tory activity (7, 8). In the past few years, sev- cortical function. These techniques have been ap- eral investigators have reported measurements of plied to a study of the rate of degradation and the various plasma and urinary steroid fractions in rate of synthesis of cortisol in myxedema and thy- hyper- and hypothyroidism in man. Several in- rotoxicosis, before and after therapy. In this vestigators have reported on the levels of free manner, much new information has been gained urinary corticoids (9-12) in hyperthyroidism, and regarding the state of activity of the adrenal cor- in myxedema (9, 10). Because of the relatively tex in these diseases. nonspecific methods of assay used these data are difficult to interpret. Urinary 17-ketosteroids MATERIALS AND METHODS have usually been found to be low in both hyper- Eight patients with the classical symptoms, signs, and and hypothyroidism (9-18). Plasma 17,21-di- laboratory findings of thyrotoxicosis (Grave's disease) to be and seven patients with findings typical of primary myx- hydroxy-20-ketosteroids have been reported edema 1 served as the subjects of these studies. All the normal in these diseases (19-21). Guinea pigs, patients had hypo- or hyperthyroidism of moderate se- which excrete a large fraction of the cortisol me- verity. Diagnoses were established on the basis of the tabolites as free 17,21-dihydroxy-20-ketosteroids, 1The diagnosis of hypopituitarism would appear to show an increased excretion of free urinary corti- have been ruled out on the basis of the following: 1) coids after administration of thyroxine (20). In normal plasma cortisol levels, 2) return of the urine patients with clinical myxedema, the urinary level corticosteroid levels (A. A., M. H., G. B.) and cortisol and turnover rates (M. H., H. A., A. A., G. B.) to normal of the total free glucuronide conjugated 17,21- following treatment with dessicated thyroid, and 3) nor- dihydroxy-20-keteosteroids has been found to be mal adrenal response to corticotropin in Patients W. C. decreased, whereas in hyperthyroidism the level and M. L. 736 THYROID AND ADRENAL CORTICAL FUNCTION 737 clinical picture, basal metabolic rate, thyroid uptake of patients with myxedema were treated with desic- P", serum cholesterol, and serum protein-bound iodine. cated thyroid (90 to 180 mg. per day). The pa- One normal subject was studied prior to and during the four week period following the administration of tri- tients with hyperthyroidism were treated with iodothyronine (300 ,ug. per day) to induce a hyperthy- propylthiouracil (100 to 300 mg. per day), or with roid state. methimazole, except for Patient C. M., who re- Plasma cortisol and urinary corticosteroids were de- ceived a therapeutic dose of radioactive iodine (4 termined by the modified (27, 28) procedure of Silber mc.). D. B. was a normal subject made hyper- and Porter (29). Urinary 17-ketosteroids were deter- mined by the Zimmermann procedure modified from the thyroid by administration of triiodothyronine for Holtorff and Koch method (30). four weeks. The steroids for intravenous administration were dis- All of the subjects with thyrotoxicosis had low solved in ethanol and diluted to 300 or 500 ml. with 5 levels of 17-ketosteroids in the urine. Normal per cent dextrose in water to a final alcohol concentra- subject D. B. showed a decline in excretion of 17- tion of approximately 5 per cent. Following rapid infu- sion of the steroids, plasma samples were collected and ketosteroids after the fourth week of therapy assayed. The rate of disappearance of the steroids was with triiodothyronine. All of the subjects with expressed as a biologic half-time. Cortisol was assayed myxedema had a decreased urine 17-ketosteroids by the modified Silber-Porter procedure. The speci- output, and the urine steroid level rose slightly ficity of this assay procedure for cortisol in plasma fol- following therapy with thyroid. lowing infusion of cortisol has been evaluated by isotope dilution (28) and found to be good. Cortisone and corti- In the patients with thyrotoxicosis, the urinary costerone were assayed by an isotope dilution method, corticoid levels were clearly elevated in D. Y. and since the phenylhydrazine assay for cortisone (31), and, B. M. In Patients B. D., C. M., and R. W. (fe- to a lesser extent, the fluorometric assay for corticos- males), the urinary corticoid levels were only terone (32), were not found to be specific for the de- slightly above the normal range of 4 to 10 mg. per termination of these steroids in plasma following their infusion. Urine cortisol concentration following the infu- day for females. No elevation of urinary corti- sion of cortisol was also determined by the isotope dilu- coids occurred in the normal subject (D. B.) tion procedure. until the third week of treatment with triiodothy- The rapidly exchangeable miscible pool of cortisol and ronine. All of the subjects with myxedema had the rate of turnover of the pool 2 were determined by the urine corticoid levels below normal, and these re- previously described method (33). Two hundred to 300 l'g. of cortisol-4-C' (10 to 20 per cent of the pool turned to normal following therapy with thyroid. size) were injected over a two to three minute period at Cortisol (100 to 200 mg.) was infused into eight 9:00 a.m. Plasma samples were collected every 30 min- subjects with thyrotoxicosis and five patients with utes for the next three hours for measurement of the myxedema (Table I). Figure 1 shows the curves specific activity of cortisol. of disappearance of cortisol from the plasma of a normal subject, and a patient with hyperthyroid- RESULTS ism, and one with myxedema. In the hyperthyroid Table I lists the plasma cortisol and urinary group, the infused cortisol was removed from the corticosteroid and 17-ketosteroid levels in the plasma at a greatly accelerated rate, except in the patients studied. The plasma cortisol level was case of Patient V. H. This subject had a moder- found to be slightly elevated in one patient (G. B.) ately enlarged liver and minimally abnormal liver with untreated myxedema. In two patients with function tests. In all but one of the patients untreated hyperthyroidism, low values were found (M. H.) with myxedema, there was a delayed (D. Y., B. M.). In some of the subjects, de- disappearance of cortisol from the plasma. In terminations were made during the myxedematous both groups, following appropriate therapy for or thyrotoxic period and again several months (3 the thyroid disorder, the plasma disappearance to 12 months) following therapy; however, sig- rates of the infused cortisol returned toward the nificant changes were not usually observed. The normal range. The metabolisms of infused cortisone and corti- 2 Turnover rate is defined as the quantity of newly syn- costerone were found to be altered in the same thesized cortisol added to the miscible pool, presumably by the adrenals, per unit time. The miscible pool is de- direction as cortisol (Table I).. fined as that body of cortisol whose mixing is rapid rela- The urinary concentration of cortisol was de- tive to its turnover. termined in three patients (D. Y., R. W., and 738 RALPH E. PETERSON TABLE I Plasma and urine steroid levels and biologic half-times of infused steroids Urinary steroids Biologic half-times* (hrs.) Plasma 17-Keto- cortisol Corticoids steroids F E B lig. % mg./day Hyperthyroidism V. H. 9 untreated 15 1.83 0.53 E. S. 9 untreated 11 1.0 0.67 B. D. 9 untreated 8 12.0 5.0 0.92 0.27 C. M. 9 untreated 18 11.2 4.7 0.63 myxedema 15 k2.6 3.3 2.15 treated 15 4.0 4.0 D.