[Distortion of adaptation--wear & tear and repair & recovery--17-KS-sulfates and stress in humans]

Abstract

We have conducted research to determine the compounds in human urine which have high values in healthy individuals, decrease with failing health (or bodily decay) and decline rapidly with advancing illness to reach very low values in severe illnesses. We initially established that 17-ketosteroid sulfates (17-KS-S) have the highest values in healthy individuals. Stress was regarded by Hans Selye as the rate of wear and tear and 17-OHCS as its indicator, but we considered that, different from inanimate things, energy transforming live organisms exist in a dynamic balance between "wear and tear" and "repair and recovery". Here it becomes important to determine the organism's adaptability at least to two factors. We regarded 17-OHCS as a compound related to tissue "wear and tear", and a search for a compound related to "repair and recovery", led us to the identification of 17-KS-S. In other words, we considered the relation between "repair and recovery" and "wear and tear". The measurement of 17-KS-S, which decreases with failing health, when combined with 17-OHCS, may make it possible to evaluate distortions in the organism (disturbance of adaptability), which bring the presence of illness or the susceptibility to illness in each person to our notice. Further adding a new dimension to clinical diagnostic acumen in an objective evaluation of psychosocial stress (emotional imbalance, dejection, depression, etc. due to the burden of a heavy debt, dismissal, urgent mental work against a deadline, transfer, inter-personal friction, parent-child relationship, etc.) where results of clinical routine tests are often within normal limits, and in the monitoring of health and illness.