A preliminary study of steroid reproductive hormones in human hair

Nowadays research and clinical studies of human reproductive endocrinology are generally carried out using human blood reproductive hormone assays. Ho wever the acquisition of human blood samples has some shortcomings. In sear ch of new approaches, we paid attention to the fact that progesterone can b e detected in cow's hair. Consequently we investigated whether or not stero id hormones are measurable in human hair. The results showed that the level s of steroid hormones in hair are not affected by shampoo and do not signif icantly vary between different segments of hair (i.e. top, middle and basal segments). The menstrual estradiol and progesterone rhythm of female hair is similar to that of female serum. The ratio of hair estradiol to serum es tradiol in the female is 41.2% and that of hair progesterone to serum proge sterone is 59.0%; the ratio of hair testosterone to serum testosterone in m ale is 116%. There are significant correlations between hair and serum ster oid hormones of healthy human adult: gamma (estradiol) = 0.395 (n = 20), p < 0.05; gamma (progesterone) = 0.440 (n = 22), p < 0.025 and gamma (testost erone) = 0.395 (n = 25), p < 0.05. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All right s reserved.