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Psychosomatic Medicine 18:159-172 (1956)
© 1956 American Psychosomatic Society

Urinary Excretion of Formalde-hydogenic Steroids and Creatinine

A Reflection of Emotional Tension

THEODORE B. SCHWARTZ M.D.1 and DANIEL R. SHIELDS M.D.2

1 Presbyterian Hospital of the City of Chicago and the University of Illinois, Chicago, Ill.; Department of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N. C.
2 Department of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N. C.

Observations of responses of medical students to the stress of a final written examination revealed a variety of statistically significant changes. Urinary formaldehydogenic steroid (FS) levels rose during and fell following the examination period. FS excretion paralleled the students' estimates of emotional tension. A similar pattern of rise and fall was noted in creatinine excretion, but the correlation with tension estimates was poor. Urinary volume and creatine excretion were not clearly related to the stress of examination-taking.

In contrast, in a prolonged study of a single individual, a negative correlation was found between daily tension estimates and the level of corticoid excretion in 24-hour urine samples. In the discussion, emphasis has been placed on the multiplicity of influences which remain to be evaluated before definitive conclusions are warranted.

Submitted on December 17, 1954






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Copyright © 1956 by the American Psychosomatic Society