Key of Life

Cuernavaca, Mexico, best known as a place for eating, dancing and laughter, last week played host to a serious conference: a troop of eminent physicians, mostly from the U.S., gathered for the first International Symposium on Steroid Hormones. Attending the conference by proxy were millions of the desperately ill. The mysterious steroid hormones, all built neatly around the same four-ringed nucleus, offer promise of understanding a long list of chronic diseases.

After days of heated discussion, the doctors agreed that the steroids are still a deep mystery. They control in some way many vital activities of the body, especially those concerned with reproduction and growth. But no one knows how they work. No doctor can predict for sure how each patient will be affected. Until the central facts have been discovered, the experts agreed at Cuernavaca, the steroids will remain an exciting, disorderly frontier of medical science.

Last week's conference was sponsored (i.e., paid for) by the Syntex Co. of

Mexico City, which makes tons of hormones out of a poisonous root found in the lowland jungles. Syntex's leading product, pregnenolone, is a synthetic steroid widely used as a substitute for scarce cortisone in the treatment of arthritis.

Pregnenolone. Some doctors reported that half of their arthritis patients were helped by pregnenolone. Some said they got no results at all. Pregnenolone's great advantage: it does not have the unpleasant "side effects" of cortisone and ACTH, its leading rivals in the treatment of arthritis. It is also cheaper and is available in large amounts.

The doctors also disagreed about using pregnenolone against other ailments. Some reported dramatic results with acute lupus, a usually fatal disease of unknown cause. Philadelphia's Dr. Richard Smith said that pregnenolone helped many patients suffering from fibrositis (stiff muscles) or bursitis.

One use for pregnenolone was discussed with great interest: its ability to help sterile males. Montreal's Dr. Hans Selye, a leading hormone expert, reported that it increases the sperm production of the testes. Dr. Selye worked mostly with experimental animals, but Dr. A. R. Abarbanel of Los Angeles experimented with human males. Of 40 sterile men that he treated with pregnenolone, Abarbanel claimed, 18 were enabled to impregnate their wives. Many of the men reported increased sexual desire--which may or may not have been imagination.

Cabeza de Negro. The usual source of many promising steroid hormones is slaughterhouse products, e.g., glands. The supply is strictly limited; all the world's slaughterhouses together could not fill the present demand.

Syntex uses a vegetable raw material, cabeza de negro (niggerhead), a Mexican wild vine whose lumpy, woody root contains a soapy-feeling compound called sapogenin. In its raw state sapogenin is not a hormone, but its molecule contains the basic steroid nucleus.*This can be separated by a simple process and built up chemically into any number of hormonelike compounds.

The steroid nucleus seems to act like a sort of blank key whose edges can be notched in significant chemical ways. The notches (addition or subtraction of a few atoms) change profoundly the compound's action in the body. Testosterone and estrone, for instance, are very much alike (see diagram), but the first is a "male," the second a "female" hormone. Vitamin D is closely related to the steroid hormones. So are certain poisons secreted by tropical frogs, and many plants besides cabeza de negro contain large amounts of steroid substances. Most living things, down to the humble algae, seem to need the magic steroid nucleus to regulate their lives.

Mala Mujer. With unlimited quantities of the basic steroid available, Syntex chemists are elaborating hundreds of compounds for doctors to test on animals or humans. They are also screening tropical plants for biologically active compounds. Their botanical explorers have found a promising root called mala mujer (bad woman), which the Indians once used to punish unfaithful wives. The slightest touch of its juice raises painful blisters. Syntex hopes that mala mujer can be put to work again, this time as a starting point for hormone production.

*Full official name: cyclopentanoperhydro-phenanthrene.

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