A COMPARISON OF THE PITUITARY-INHIBITING, ANABOLIC AND ANDROGENIC EFFECTS OF NORETHANDROLONE IN THE PARABIOTIC RAT1

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Abstract
THE anabolic effect of the androgens has at times been the sought-for clinical feature with the associated androgenic activity being tolerated as an undesirable side effect. Numerous attempts have been made to divorce androgenicity from anabolic activity through the preparation of new steroidal analogues of testosterone. In the past, the purported promise of all such protein-building compounds has been shattered by the demonstration of significant clinical androgenicity. A new compound, norethandrolone, was recently developed which indicated, in preliminary investigations, a preponderance of anabolic potential with little androgenic effect. This synthetic steroid has a 17-α ethyl group substituted on the 19-nor-testosterone configuration. In the present study, the parabiotic rat technique was employed to evaluate the properties of norethandrolone since this experimental procedure offered the unique opportunity of measuring the effect of the steroid upon pituitary gonadotrophic activity simultaneously with the determination of its relative anabolic and androgenic activities.