Gender determines ACTH recovery from hypercortisolemia in healthy older humans.

Objective: Available clinical data raise the possibility that stress-adaptive mechanisms differ by gender. However, this notion has not been rigorously tested in relation to cortisol-mediated negative feedback.

Materials/methods: Degree of ACTH inhibition during and recovery from an experimental cortisol clamp was tested in 20 healthy older subjects (age 60±2.

Gender, sex-steroid, and secretagogue-selective recovery from growth hormone-induced feedback in older women and men.

Context: GH negatively regulates its own secretion. How gender, sex steroids, and secretagogues modulate GH autofeedback is not known.

Hypothesis/objective: Supplementation with sex steroids and/or a peptidyl secretagogue will enhance the escape of GH from autoinhibition, thus framing a mechanism for amplifying pulsatile GH secretion.