[The correlation of the psychological and hormonal status in obese patients]

A study was made of psychological personality traits and their relationship with hormonal-lipid interrelations in patients with different types of obesity. The MMPI methods, modified by F. B. Berezin, were employed. A group of 80 patients was investigated. A significant rise of the level of the 7th and 8th MMPI scales was revealed in patients with hypothalamic obesity (HO) as compared to patients with alimentary constitutional obesity (ACO). This rise could be accounted for by hypercorticism in HO patients and the adaptogenic effect of cortisol. It was also confirmed by the presence of a feedback between cortisol levels and MMPI scales 1, 2, 6. Negative interrelationships between value 0 of the MMPI test scale and the level of basal oxygen metabolism were indicative of the significance of redox processes in social adaptation. ACO women were shown to have a high level of adaptation to stress agents as compared to ACO men. In menopausal ACO women a rise of scales 7 and 8 was observed, a rise of scales 2 and 7--in HO, indicating adaptation failure and proving the adaptation role of estrogens in responses of the body to stress.