EVALUATION OF TRITIUM CHOLESTEROL AS A TRACER IN MAN*

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Abstract
INTRODUCTION STUDIES have been in progress during the past three years in this laboratory1 to determine the percentage of the urinary steroids in man that is derived from cholesterol. A part of this project has involved the feeding of tritium-cholesterol (cholesterol-t) to human beings for extended periods of time, e.g., as long as two weeks, and the isolation of labelled plasma free cholesterol and urinary steroids. Before these studies were undertaken, it was necessary to establish 1) that the tritium in cholesterol-t, prepared by catalytic exchange, was not labile in the course of the catabolism of the sterol in the body to bile acids and steroids; and 2) that tritium derived from the degradation of the side chain did not re-enter newly synthesized cholesterol or steroid hormones to any appreciable extent.Therefore an investigation was initiated to evaluate the use of cholesterol-t as a tracer in man. This paper presents the data that were obtained from this study.