[Hormonal and metabolic reactions in the human body during prolonged starvation]

This paper discusses hormonal and metabolic reactions of healthy volunteers exposed to 14-day starvation. This exposure led to many-fold increase of plasma and urinary epinephrine (E); drastic increase of ACTH and beta-endorphin (BE), morning and integrated concentrations of cortisol and STH, aldosterone, T3, glucagon, cAMP, cGMP, cAMP-cGMP, acetyl choline (AC), free fatty acids (FFA), lactate, metanephrine (MN) excretion; decrease of plasma norepinephrine (NE) and unchanged NE excretion; decrease of plasma concentrations of TTH, T4, T3, prolactin (PL), insulin (morning and integrated concentrations), C-peptide, FSH, LH, testosterone, histamine, prostaglandins (PG) A + E, PG F2, glucose and pH, as well as decrease of excretion of homovanillic acid (HVA), vanillyl mandelic acid (VMA), normetanephrine (NMN) and MN-E, NMN:NE. On recovery day 14 concentrations of E, NE, BE, STH, AC, cAMP, cGMP, FFA as well as E and dopamine excretion remained elevated while concentrations of T3, PL, FT, LT, testosterone PG A + E, PG 2 and excretion of MN, HVA, VMA, MN:E remained decreased, while other parameters returned to the normal.