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Updated: Jul 26, 2026

Absorption of Nasal and Bronchial Fluids: Precision Sampling of the Human Respiratory Mucosa and Laboratory Processing of Samples
Published on: January 21, 2018
Respiratory distress and beta-endorphin-like immunoreactivity in humans
Abstract:
Beta-endorphin-like immunoreactivity was determined in the plasma of twenty patients suffering from hypoxia of various etiologies and in twenty healthy adult volunteers who served as controls. Mean beta-endorphin-like immunoreactivity in the hypoxic patients was 53.2 +/- 5.5 (SEM) pg/ml, as compared to the volunteer subjects in whom the mean level was 6.2 +/- 1.9 pg/ml (P less than 0.01). Significant negative correlations were present between both arterial pH (r = -0.85; P less than 0.01) and arterial PO2 (r = -0.80; P less than 0.01) and beta-endorphin-like immunoreactivity. These findings seem to lend support to the hypothesis that hypoxia and acidosis represent stressful conditions which may stimulate the release of beta-endorphin in humans.
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