THE EFFECT OF CIGARETTE-SMOKING ON ADRENAL-CORTICAL HORMONES

We assessed the association between cigarette smoking and basal levers of adrenal cortical hormones in 11 postmenopausal smokers and 11 post menopausal nonsmokers and measured the acute adrenal effects of cigare ttes in the smokers. After an overnight food, alcohol and tobacco fast , participants smoked or sham-smoked every hr for 8 hr and provided se rum samples for hormone assay before and after every other cigarette/s ham, as well as before and after a corticotropin stimulation test. The postmenopausal smokers had substantially higher basal levels of andro stenedione (4.60 +/- 0.42 vs. 2.70 +/- 0.36 nmol/l, P < .05) and dihyd roepiandrosterone sulfate (2.88 +/- 0.36 vs. 1.91 +/- 0.16 mu mol/l, P < .05) and higher average levels of cortisol and androstenedione from 0800 to 1300 hr (351.0 +/- 17.5 vs. 295.5 +/- 17.1, nmol/l and 3.58 /- 0.42 vs. 2.51 +/- 0.19 nmol/l, P = .03, and P < .05, respectively). There were small acute effects of individual cigarettes on the hormon es, but the response to corticotropin was similar in smokers and nonsm okers. Our results indicate that cigarette smoking causes a generalize d disturbance in adrenal cortical hormone levels. There is no evidence for acute tolerance to the adrenocortical affects of the hourly smoki ng of medium-nicotine cigarettes, but these acute effects do not expla in the higher hormone levels in smokers. There is no evidence for a pa rtial block in the cortisol synthesis pathway to explain the increased adrenal androgen levels in smokers.