EFFECT OF VITAMIN B COMPLEX DEFICIENCY ON INACTIVATION OF ESTRONE IN THE LIVER

Abstract

IN A PRELIMINARY NOTE (i) we have reported that deficiency of the vitamin B complex in female rats markedly diminishes the inactivation of estrone in the liver. Further study of this phenomenon, which is the subject of the present communication, shows that the inactivation mechanism, impaired by vitamin B deficiency, may be restored by addition of brewers yeast to the diet. Subsequent depletion of the diet is again capable of interfering with the destruction of estrone in the liver. The flow of estrogen through this organ can thus be controlled at will, by withholding the vitamin B complex or by restoring it to the diet.

Within a few years after the isolation of the first crystalline estrogen, it became apparent that this and related compounds are rapidly inactivated in the body. Much of the early literature has been reviewed elsewhere (a). Perhaps the earliest clue to the possibility that estrogen is destroyed by an organ or organs in the portal circulation was the observation by Evans and Burr in 1926 (3) that estrogen was more-effective when given subcutaneously than when administered intraperitoneally.