Sperm and Eggs on the Go

Abstract

Using radioimmunoassay a team headed by Jean Franchimont at the Institute of Medicine in Liege Belgium has uncovered relationships between the hypothalamic and pituitary sex hormones and the male and female target sex hormones. They have found that testosterone levels in men are monitored by LH and FSH levels in the pituitary and that infertility in some cases results from abnormally high FSH levels caused probably by a steroid that prevent sperm maturation. They have shown that in women FSH peaks at midcycle and causes the formation of the corpus luteum while the estrogen peak during the preovulatory phase causes the midcycle LH surge. The crucial component of this feedback mechanism is the 17beta hydroxy radical of the estrogens. Other developments include a method of pinpointing time of ovulation within 24-48 hours and experimental confirmation that 20 mcg estrogen in a contraceptive pill is sufficient to suppress FSH action but that 50 mcg is necessary to suppress LH action as well. Better guidelines for determining the cause of male infertility and the possibility of a practical home assay for detecting the time of ovulation are among the implications of these findings.