Secretions Of Women Research Articles

Blockage of ghrelin-induced prolactin secretion in women by bromocriptine

To investigate the effect of bromocriptine on ghrelin-induced PRL secretion in women. Longitudinal study. University hospital. Ten healthy, normally cycling women. The women were injected IV on day 3 of three cycles with a single dose of normal saline (cycle 1) or ghrelin (1 microg/kg) after pretreatment for 2 days either with placebo (cycle 2) or with bromocriptine (cycle 3) per os. Blood samples were taken before and frequently after drugs administration for 120 minutes. The PRL and GH responses to ghrelin were assessed. Bromocriptine suppressed basal PRL levels significantly. The injection of ghrelin stimulated a significant increase in serum PRL levels in cycle 2 but not in cycle 3, in which PRL levels remained stable. The response of GH to gherlin was significantly attenuated in cycle 3 as compared with cycle 2. The present study demonstrates for the first time that bromocriptine blocked the stimulating effect of ghrelin on PRL release and attenuated the GH response to the same stimulus. The mechanism of these interactions needs to be clarified.

Does female ejaculation serve an antimicrobial purpose?

Women have glandular tissue below the bladder and surrounding the urethra that appears to be homologous to the male prostate. This tissue (also called "female prostate" or Skene's glands) appears to the source of a viscous, white secretion, which exits from the urethra upon sexual stimulation in some women. Analysis of this secretion (also known as "female ejaculate"), and comparison with pre-coital urine from the same women, revealed that its composition was unlike urine and often contained components also found in male seminal fluid (minus the sperm). The female ejaculate had lower levels of creatinine, but had elevated levels of prostate specific antigen, prostatic acidic phosphatase, prostate specific acid phosphatase, and glucose. The functional importance of female ejaculate has yet to be fully elucidated. It is possible that retention of a prostatic tissue homolog and its glandular secretion in women is merely a vestige of development and differentiation from an embryonic, gender-neutral body plan. We hypothesize that female ejaculation has a unique function in producing a secretion into the urethra that provides protection from urinary tract infections (UTIs). We further predict that female ejaculate contains antimicrobial compounds including elements such as zinc. We also hypothesize that retention of prostatic tissue and an ability to ejaculate its glandular secretion were maintained in women because these traits provided an evolutionary advantage. Specifically: (1) women who could ejaculate antimicrobial secretions into the urethra were less likely to suffer UTIs (particularly coitus-induced UTIs), (2) women without UTIs were more likely to be receptive to coitus at a greater frequency, (3) women engaging in frequent coitus were more likely to become pregnant, and (4) women who became pregnant often were more likely to successfully reproduce the species.

Masculinity on Trial: Penises, Hermaphrodites and the Uncertain Male Body in Early Modern France

��� ‘Women’s Secrets’ have long been the focus of gender and medical history for the late medieval and early modern periods at the expense of investigation into male corporeality. 1 Contemporary concerns over sexual difference and the generation of healthy progeny have focused historians’ attention primarily on to the female body, especially the uterus, as a locus of contested secrets about female interiority and the mysteries of reproduction. 2 As Thomas Laqueur and more recently Edward Behrend-Martinez and Katharine Park have argued, this may be the result, in part, of a relative lack of early modern curiosity about the male body by comparison with the glut of interest in the elusive, secretive female body, which was so intimately connected with paternity and patriarchy. 3 Rather than probing the depths of the early modern male body many scholars have instead turned their attention to socially-constructed masculinity; to representations of male corporeality and to the exploration of the impact of changing ideas of civility and sociability on ideals of manliness, rather than the actual physical embodiment of manhood. 4 This is especially surprising since, contrary to Laqueur’s argument that gender overrode physical sex in this period, the ‘dividends of masculinity’ – control of family, property and participation in the civic community – were directly linked to proof of physical potency through the engendering of progeny in marriage emphasizing the link between patriarchy and the male body. 5 Although the history of men’s bodies is beginning to be incorporated into histories of bodies more generally, this interest is largely anglocentric, and little work has been done on either masculinity or its embodiment in early modern France. 6 Moreover, much of the existing historiography of the male body, influenced by the emphasis on women’s secrets, is skewed towards a fixed, generic, stable but ‘little-defined norm’ 7 of masculine corporeality against which the leaky, grotesque, mysterious and deceptive female body was mapped. The focus risks the imposition of a single, dominant interpretation of masculinity, and indeed of the male body, at the expense of a more nuanced picture of embodied masculinities. Furthermore, as this article will show, the male body was often no more straightforward or transparent than its female counterpart. The equivocal male body was no less perilous in patriarchal terms than the secrets of women. Male bodies, just like female bodies, were ‘contested sites’ and the repositories of social and cultural expectations. 8

Pulsatile Luteinizing Hormone Secretion in Women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome under Clomiphene Citrate. Differences between Responders and Nonrespondersa , b)

Although administration of Clomiphene Citrate (CC) is an effective therapy for ovulation induction in PCO patients, 15 to 20% of PCO patients do not ovulate following CC treatment. The aim of this study was to compare the endocrine dynamics (LH pulsatile pattern, FSH and steroid hormone changes) in 6 patients who ovulated (PCOS) and 6 PCO patients who did not ovulate in response to CC (PCOR). Blood was collected at 15 min intervals for 4 hr on day 9 of the first menstrual cycle (control cycle) and on day 9 of the following (treatment) cycle. In this cycle all women received 100 mg CC/day from day 5 to day 9. LH was determined in all samples whereas FSH and estradiol were measured every 60 min. No significant differences were observed regarding the age, body mass index, degree of hirsutism, ovarian volumes and basal levels of reproductive hormones between both groups of PCO women. During the control cycle, the LH pulse amplitude and transverse LH mean concentrations in PCOR patients were higher than in PCOR patients whereas the LH pulse frequency was similar in both groups. No difference was found in FSH and estradiol values between both groups. Compared to the control cycle, PCOR patients showed no change in the pulse amplitudes and no difference in LH, FSH and estradiol values following CC treatment. In contrast, during the CC therapy in PCOS patients an increase in the LH amplitude (p less than 0.05), the transverse mean LH concentration (p less than 0.05), FSH and estradiol was observed.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Effect of an OT antagonist on the control of the midcycle LH surge in women

Data in women regarding the role of OT in LH secretion during the LH surge are conflicting. As in previous studies blood samples for LH measurements were taken infrequently, we re-examined this matter in women with a fully characterized midcycle LH surge. Normal women were studied over two cycles. When the dominant follicle reached a diameter of either 16-17 mm (Group 1) or 18-19 mm (Group 2), the women were infused intravenously for 3 h with normal saline (cycle-1) or atosiban (cycle-2). Fifteen women (10 in group 1 and 5 in group 2) aged 23-35 years. Blood samples were obtained every 6 h to characterize the midcycle LH surge. The time interval (mean +/- SEM) from the start of the infusion to the onset of the LH surge in the two cycles was 46.8 +/- 4.8 and 45.6 +/- 9.6 h in group 1 and 6.0 +/- 2.4 and 7.5 +/- 2.8 h, respectively, in group 2. LH values during the LH surge were similar in the two cycles except in group 1 at the point of 30 h at which LH value in cycle-2 (41.2 +/- 4.6 mIU/ml) was significantly lower than in cycle-1 (52.8 +/- 3.4 mIU/ml, P < 0.05). Nevertheless, in each group, the area under the curve for LH was similar in the two cycles. Antagonism of endogenous OT action by atosiban does not alter the LH profile during a fully characterized midcycle LH surge, suggesting that OT is not a major regulator of LH secretion in women.

Sexual Discourses in the Premodern World

Sexual Discourses in the Premodern World Laura Gowing (bio) Marilynn Desmond . Ovid's Art and the Wife of Bath: The Ethics of Erotic Violence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006. xi + 206 pp.; ill. ISBN 13 978-0-8014-4379-4 (cl); 978-0-8014-7317-3 (pb). Ruth Mazo Karras . Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others. New York: Routledge, 2005. viii + 200 pp. ISBN 13 978-0-415-28962-7 (cl); 0-415-28963-4 (pb). Kathleen P. Long . Hermaphrodites in Renaissance Europe. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006. x + 268 pp. ISBN 0-7546-5609-8 (cl). Katharine Park . Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection. New York: Zone Books, 2006. 419 pp.; ill. ISBN 1-890951-67-6 (cl); 1-890951-68-4 (pb). Dror Ze'evi . Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500-1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. xv + 223 pp.; ill. ISBN 13 978-0-520-24564-8 (cl); 978-0-520-24563-1 (pb). Across times, genders, and places, the erotic seems to be one of the most deeply embedded aspects of identity. The struggles of historians to describe how sex and sexuality differed in the past have been some of the most productive debates in gender history. In their different ways, each of the books discussed here demonstrates how particular is our modern sense of sex, sexuality, and gender, and how powerfully a few texts and images can shape the meaning of sex. Premodern concepts of sex and sexuality, in both the West and the East, were part of a worldview whose details changed minutely and slowly. Prevailing discourses were both radically different from modern ideas, and sufficiently heterodox to leave room for inconsistencies, local customs, and challenges from social, religious, and ethnic minorities. It is one of the great strengths of such works as Ruth Karras's Sexuality in Medieval Europe and Dror Ze'evi's Producing Desire that they convey the overarching discourses of desire, while highlighting the manifold possibilities within them. Ze'evi brings a Foucauldian reading of discourse to the sexual world of the Ottoman Middle East. His story relies on an eclectic set of texts: laws [End Page 146] and legal commentaries, Sufi and orthodox Islamic religious texts, Galenic-influenced medical theories, the scripts of puppet plays, and the literature of dream interpretation. The sexual scripts embedded in these genres both legislate for and debate sex, power, and morality. A cosmology of elements and humors, whose basic ideas shared with those of early modern Europe the common ground of Galenism, reigned well into the nineteeth century. Here the body and the soul share a nature: some are passive, some active, some sexual, and others chaste. Women appeared as imperfect versions of men; sexual difference was humoral. A table charts the ways in which difference was read on the body: women's eyes were languid, half-closed, or twinkling; men had wide mouths, copious beards, and curved noses indicative of strong sexual urges. The detail of such physiognomic descriptions might stem from humoral theory, but it also suggests an understanding of sexual difference which ranges more widely than the much-discussed "one-sex" model; perhaps this was one reason why the Ottoman shift toward a model more like the modern Western one-with sexual difference seen as absolute rather than relative-came slowly. The legal systems that structured public sexual regulation in this world are notoriously complex, and Ze'evi picks his way through them by means of a map of transgressions. If rules were often broken or ignored, their precepts reflected weighty distinctions: between the roles of male / female, free / slave; penetration and nonpenetrative acts; passive and active parts. Male and female sexual transgressions-sometimes at least-could be treated with a surprising equality, though there is little evidence here of how those legal codes played out in practice. Medical, religious, and legal discourses are nicely counterbalanced here by the lewd theatrics of shadow plays, and by the symbols of dream interpretation; here, most of all, debates about the ethics of sexual behavior found their resolution in ambiguity, compromise, and metaphor. In the long term, Ze'evi argues, the...

Relative effects of estrogen, age, and visceral fat on pulsatile growth hormone secretion in healthy women

Growth hormone (GH) secretion is subject to complex regulation. How pre- and postmenopausal age (PRE, POST), estradiol (E(2)) availability, and abdominal visceral fat (AVF) jointly affect peptidyl-secretagogue drive of GH secretion is not known. To this end, healthy PRE (n = 20) and POST (n = 22) women underwent a low- vs. high-E(2) clamp before receiving a continuous intravenous infusion of GH-releasing hormone (GHRH) or GH-releasing peptide (GHRP-2). According to analysis of covariance, PRE and POST women achieved age-independent hypo- and euestrogenemia under respective low- and high-E(2) clamps. All four of age (P < 0.001), E(2) status (P = 0.006), secretagogue type (P < 0.001), and an age x peptide interaction (P = 0.014) controlled pulsatile GH secretion. Independently of E(2) status, POST women had lower GH responses to both GHRH (P = 0.028) and GHRP-2 (P < 0.001) than PRE women. Independently of age, GHRP-2 was more stimulatory than GHRH during low E(2) (P = 0.011) and high E(2) (P < 0.001). Stepwise forward-selection multivariate analysis revealed that computerized tomographic estimates of AVF explained 22% of the variability in GHRH action (P = 0.002), whereas age and E(2) together explained 60% of the variability in GHRP-2 drive (P < 0.001). These data establish that age, estrogen status, and AVF are triple covariates of continuous peptide-secretagogue drive of pulsatile GH secretion in women. Each factor must be controlled for to allow valid comparisons of GH-axis activity.

Incretin hormone secretion in women with polycystic ovary syndrome: roles of obesity, insulin sensitivity, and treatment with metformin

In normal subjects, the incretin hormones glucagon-like peptide–1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) are responsible for 70% of the insulin response during a meal; but in diabetic subjects and other insulin-resistant conditions, the incretin effect is impaired. Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is associated with insulin resistance, and the pathophysiologic mechanisms behind PCOS resemble those of type 2 diabetes mellitus; therefore, women with PCOS may have alterations in the incretin hormone response. Metformin is widely used in the treatment of both type 2 diabetes mellitus and PCOS. Metformin may exert some of its effect on glucose metabolism by increasing GLP-1 biosynthesis and secretion and thereby increasing the incretin effect. The objective of the study was to measure incretin hormone secretion in women with PCOS and to evaluate the effect of metformin treatment. Cross-sectional comparison of 40 women with PCOS (19 lean and 21 obese) and 26 healthy control women (9 lean and 17 obese) and longitudinal evaluation of the effects of 8 months of metformin 1000 mg twice daily in women with PCOS were performed. Plasma concentrations of GIP and GLP-1 were determined frequently during a 75-g glucose tolerance test, and insulin sensitivity was evaluated by the euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamp. The incretin hormone response did not differ between subjects with and without PCOS. Subgroup analysis showed lower GIP (area under the curve [AUC]) levels in obese women with PCOS compared with obese control women ( P < .05) and compared with lean women with PCOS ( P < .05). Metformin increased GIP (AUC) and GLP-1 (AUC) in lean women with PCOS ( P < .05), and a similar trend was seen in the obese women ( P = .07). The GIP secretion is attenuated in obese women with PCOS, whereas treatment with metformin increases the levels of both GIP and GLP-1 in women with PCOS.

Increased secretion of amylin in women with polycystic ovary syndrome

To investigate amylin secretion in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Prospective, case-control study. Academic institution. Twenty women with PCOS and 10 with ovulatory cycles who matched for body mass index. An oral glucose tolerance test was performed, and glucose, insulin, and amylin levels were measured at fasting and after glucose ingestion. The area under the curve for insulin, amylin, and glucose was calculated. Ten women with PCOS were treated with metformin and 10 women with rosiglitazone for 6 months. Amylin levels were measured before and after treatment. Fasting amylin levels and amylin response to oral glucose were significantly increased in women with PCOS. At fasting, there was significant positive correlation between insulin and amylin levels both in women with PCOS and control subjects. After glucose ingestion, amylin response correlated with the glucose response in women with PCOS. Amylin levels decreased with metformin but not with rosiglitazone treatment. In women with PCOS, [1] there is increased secretion of amylin, [2] insulin and amylin secretion is coregulated in the fasting state, [3] after glucose ingestion, glucose levels regulate amylin release, and [4] the insulin-sensitizing agent metformin, but not rosiglitazone, reduces amylin secretion.

Patterns of Income Allocation among Poor Gecekondu Households in Turkey: Overt Mechanisms and Women's Secret Kitties

This article examines the extent to which patterns of income allocation within the household influence poverty. The study proposes a new conceptual distinction between overt and covert mechanisms. It makes use of established concepts of financial management and control to explain the overt mechanisms, but questions the significance of existing management typologies in understanding poverty. The data draws on interviews conducted separately with both spouses in low-income households carefully selected from a gecekondu settlement in Ankara. Contrary to the dominant view, the research demonstrates a general tendency for both spouses to care for the ‘collective good’ in their income allocation decisions; thereby minimising further deprivation of the overall household and its individual members. It is also demonstrated that how total income is distributed in practice may be of greater relevance in understanding overall household deprivation than systems of financial management and control. Finally, secret kitties are shown to operate as a covert mechanism whereby women claim enhanced financial agency and indirectly challenge men's authority without causing increased deprivation for the overall household or the children.

Metformin administration was associated with a modification of LH, prolactin and insulin secretion dynamics in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome

Aim. To elucidate the dynamics of FSH, LH, prolactin (PRL), TSH and insulin secretion in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) treated with metformin (MET).Patients and methods. In a prospective, controlled and randomised trial, 32 women with PCOS and 32 with normal cycle were recruited to receive MET (850 mg b.i.d.) or placebo (n: 16 for each subgroup) for an average of 40 days. Pituitary function and insulin secretion were assessed before and after intervention by GnRH-TRH tests and oral glucose tolerance test induced insulin response.Results. Basal and area under the response curve (AURC) LH values were higher in PCOS than in normal controls before MET and declined following treatment in the former group (P < 0.05). Ovulatory PCOS responders had lower basal LH, AURCLH and AURCPRL values during MET than anovulatory cases (P < 0.05 for all) and AURCins was lower in ovulatory than anovulatory PCOS before and on MET (P < 0.02–P < 0.05), with a rise of QUICKY index in the former group during MET treatment (P < 0.05). FSH and TSH were similar.Conclusions. MET administration lowered LH activity in all PCOS women and in ovulatory responders and also compromised PRL stimulated secretion in the latter cases. These findings were indicative of an effect of MET on pituitary activity.

Effect of ghrelin on gonadotrophin secretion in women during the menstrual cycle

It has been suggested that ghrelin may affect reproduction in animals by decreasing pituitary LH secretion. The role of ghrelin on LH secretion in women has not been investigated. Our aim was to assess the effect of ghrelin administration on basal and GnRH-induced LH secretion during the menstrual cycle. Normally cycling women (n = 10) received on Day 3 of three consecutive cycles a single bolus i.v. of either ghrelin (1 microg/kg, cycle 1) or GnRH (100 microg, cycle 2) or GnRH plus ghrelin (cycle 3). In cycle 1, ghrelin was also injected in late follicular and mid-luteal phase of the cycle. Saline was injected in a preceding cycle (cycle 1, control). Blood samples were taken before drugs or saline injection (time 0) as well as at -15, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90 and 120 min. Plasma ghrelin levels increased rapidly, peaking at 15 or 30 min (P < 0.001), then decreased steadily, approaching pre-injection levels at 120 min. Serum FSH, LH, estradiol and progesterone levels remained unchanged. The stimulating effect of GnRH on LH and FSH secretion was unaffected by ghrelin injection. In contrast to saline, ghrelin stimulated a significant increase in growth hormone levels. Under these experimental conditions, our results demonstrate for the first time the inability of a bolus of ghrelin to affect basal and GnRH-induced LH and FSH secretion. It is suggested that ghrelin does not play a major physiological role in gonadotrophin secretion in women.

Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection (review)

Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection (review)

Cystic fibrosis and estrogens: a perfect storm

Irreversible destruction and widening of the airways due to acquired infections or genetic mutations as well as those of unknown cause are more severe in females. Differences between male and female anatomy, behavior, and hormonal state have been proposed to explain the increased incidence and severity in females with airway disease such as cystic fibrosis (CF); however, a mechanism to explain a sex-related difference has remained elusive. In this issue of the JCI, Coakley et al. report that elevations in the major estrogen hormone in humans--17beta-estradiol--reduce Ca2+-activated Cl- secretion by airway epithelial cells in culture, thereby disrupting ion and water balance (see the related article beginning on page 4025). They measure a similar diminution of nasal epithelial Ca2+-activated Cl- secretion in women with CF during the menstrual cycle phase at which 17beta-estradiol level is at its highest. These data suggest that for about one week of a four-week menstrual cycle, women with CF will have a reduced ability to efficiently clear airway secretions, the buildup of which is a hallmark of CF. The authors suggest that these data warrant the testing of antiestrogen therapy in females with CF and propose an alternative avenue for CF therapeutic development.

Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection. Katharine Park

<i>Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection</i>. Katharine Park

18F]2-Fluoro-2-Deoxy-d-Glucose Positron Emission Tomography Demonstration of Estrogen Negative and Positive Feedback on Luteinizing Hormone Secretion in Women

Precise regulation of the neuroendocrine components of the female reproductive axis involves both negative and positive feedback of estrogen on gonadotropin secretion. Our objective was to determine the hypothalamic and/or pituitary sites of estrogen negative and positive feedback using neuroimaging techniques. A graded estrogen infusion protocol was administered at a General Clinical Research Center in an academic medical center. Healthy postmenopausal women (n = 11) were recruited for study. Serum samples were measured every 4 h. A structural magnetic resonance imaging was performed at baseline, and [(18)F]2-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose ((18)FDG) positron emission tomography was performed at baseline and 24 and 72 h. FDG positron emission tomography was co-registered with magnetic resonance imaging scans, and region of interest analysis was performed. Serum LH and estradiol were assessed. Normalized values for glucose uptake were extracted from each region of interest for each subject at each time point. A decrease in normalized (18)FDG uptake was apparent in the hypothalamus at 24 h (P < 0.02) associated with decreased LH (P < 0.0005). The increase in LH at 72 h (P < 0.0005) was associated with increased pituitary (18)FDG uptake (P < 0.02) but no change in hypothalamic uptake. Changes in (18)FDG uptake as a measure of metabolic activity can be demonstrated in the hypothalamus and pituitary in association with discrete hormonal events. Results are consistent with mediation of estrogen negative feedback on LH at the hypothalamus, whereas estrogen positive feedback occurs at the pituitary with no evidence of increased hypothalamic activity in women.

Katherine Park, Secrets of women: gender, generation, and the origins of human dissection, New York, Zone Books, 2006, pp. 419, illus., £23.95, $36.95 (hardback 978-1-890951-67-2).

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Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection. By Katharine Park (New York, Zone Books, 2006) 419 pp. $36.95

<i>Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection</i>. By Katharine Park (New York, Zone Books, 2006) 419 pp. $36.95

Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation and the Origins of Human Dissection

Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation and the Origins of Human Dissection

Inappropriate gonadotropin secretion in polycystic ovary syndrome

To evaluate inappropriate gonadotropin secretion in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Retrospective study. Academic tertiary center. A total of 373 women were classified into three groups: [1] healthy control women (n = 48); [2] women who were positive for PCOS risk factor; and [3] women with PCOS (n = 251). None. Gonadotropin levels, LH-FSH ratio, body mass index, and clinical and/or biochemical presentations of PCOS. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, used to predict PCOS for the LH-FSH ratio, showed similar diagnostic performance to total T and average ovarian volume. The LH-FSH ratio exhibits greater observed accuracy than total T and average ovarian volume for evaluation of women with oligomenorrhea or anovulation. An LH-FSH ratio of >1 presented the best combination of sensitivity and specificity. Body mass index was positively correlated with total T in non-PCOS and PCOS groups; however, body mass index was negatively correlated with LH in PCOS but showed no correlation in non-PCOS subjects. The LH-FSH ratio is a valuable diagnostic tool in evaluating women with PCOS and oligomenorrhea or anovulation, and an LH-FSH ratio of >1 may be used as a decision threshold. The link between body mass index and LH may provide clues for further understanding the pathological milieu of PCOS.