Hirsute women with elevated androgen levels: Psychological characteristics,steroid hormones,and catecholamines

Fifteen hirsute women with oligomenorrhea were compared with age-matched, healthy, normally menstruating women during rest and experimentally induced stress to explore the relation between increased androgen levels and catecholamine excretion. Testosterone levels in serum (p<.0001) and basal catecholamine excretion (p<.05) were higher in hirsute women than in the control group. Testosterone levels of hirsute women were negatively correlated with serum Cortisol (p<.05) and urinary Cortisol (p<.01) levels. No significant correlations were found between urinary catecholamines and serum steroid hormone or urinary Cortisol levels. The control group responded to the experimentally induced stress with an increase in diastolic blood pressure (p<.001). In the personality measurements, the hirsute women scored higher than the control subjects as to introversion, anxiety proneness, psychasthenia, guilt, and inhibited aggression. They were more anxious to please others, and experienced a lack of control over personal life events, but did not differ as to self-reported masculinity-femininity.