ESTROGEN EFFECTS ON BLOOD AMINO-ACID COMPARTMENTATION

The present paper focuses on the study of blood amino acid compartment ation in healthy men (lean and obese) and women, with special emphasis on the estimation of the recently described blood-cell adsorbed amino acid pool. The wide range of changes found in this pool on comparing different physiological situations may be attributable to its proposed characteristic high dynamism on the one hand, but also to the influen ce of other factors such as hormones. Along these lines, the sex- and obesity-linked variations found here in human blood led to the specula tion as to whether these differences could be related to the influence of estrogens. This hypothesis was further tested by chronically treat ing a group of male rats with estrone and checking their subsequent bl ood amino acid compartment changes (which yielded a greater difference in the adsorbed pool). From the overall results obtained it may be co ncluded that the higher production of estrogens in women and obese men affects amino acid availability to the tissues by modulating the bloo d-cell adsorbed amino acid pool through a mechanism that is, at presen t, unknown.