Cortisol, DHEA, Progesterone And Nearsightedness Connection

[noordinary]

Just some food for thought.
How I got here:
1. Book Let's Get Well by Adelle Davis (1965 edition), Chapter 29. Eye problems and diseases, p. 353 Nearsightedness:
"That nutrition plays a role in the prevention of nearsightedness - another manifestation of stress - was forcefully brought out during the depression years, when the incidence in school children jumped from 25 percent in 1925 to 72 percent in 1935 [4]. This abnormality is associated with an undersupply or faulty absorption of calcium (ch. 25), which allows tension and sometimes spasms of the tiny muscles holding the lenses [4]."
[4] Josephson E. M., Nearsightedness Is Preventable, Chedney Press, New York, N.Y., 1939
->2. I couldn't locate a copy of the book [4], one i could read. There are several copies in libraries around US:
Near-sightedness is preventable (Book, 1939) [WorldCat.org] as for the ebook, it is only available for students with print disabilities. If someone has access to this book and it is not an inconvenience - please share.
However Josephson E. M. (Emanuel Mann Josephson) wrote other books, among them Glaucoma and Its Medical Treatment with Cortin. Myopia, Its Cause and Prevention, Chedney Press, New York, N.Y., 1937
Tough to locate as well Glaucoma and its medical treatment with cortin Myopia, its cause and prevention. (eBook, 1937) [WorldCat.org] and i found a copy on amazon for $100 https://www.amazon.com/Glaucoma-med...39651146&sr=1-15&keywords=emanuel+m+josephson which i have not purchased (yet). I want to point our that Emanuel M. Josephson was also the author of the book (among other books) Your Life is Their Toy: Merchants in Medicine, Chedney Press, New York, N.Y., 1948 that was discussed a little bit here Books By Emanuel M. Josephson, M.D about the history about American Medical Association and its corruption, he saw and predicted all what is happening in medicine and science nowadays.
Back to the thread title: looks like Emanuel M. Josephson talks about cortin in his books in regards to myopia treatment and prevention.
--> 3. The substance (or chemical) cortin was tough to find either. Wiki refers to corticosteroid, making it look like cortin and corticosteroid is the same thing, but they aren't. What i was able to find is book The History of Endocrine Surgery by R. B. Welbourn (1990), p.162 The search for cortical hormones:
"The search for cortical hormones was pursued intensively in 1930s. The efficacy of cortical extracts (cortin) was tested by there capacity to sustain animals after adrenalectomy and to restore the health of patients with Addison's disease (90). Until about 1940 in was assumed that cortin is was a single substance and that it's essential role was the regulation of menial metabolism. After all, patients with Addison's disease were found to be deficient in sodium and chloride, but retains potassium; sodium chloride was beneficial therapeutically, and excessive consumption of potassium was harmful. ... In 1937 deoxycorticosterone (DOC), the first product of the adrenal cortex to be synthesized, was fount to be a steroid, and the next your it was use to correct the mineral abnormalities of Addison's disease. Soon it was employed with cortin and saline to support patients after removal of adrenal tumors. However, in excessive dosage it either cause hypertension and edema, which could be prevented by the reduced sodium intake, or resulted in prostration or paralysis, which could be counteracted by potassium. Whole adrenal extract on the other hand could be given in the unlimited dosage, at least for a short time. Further more, unlike the extract, DOC did not produce a sense of well-being in patients with hypoadrenalism. DOC was clearly not cortin. By this time, however, other adrenal steroids have been found, notably two similar compounds, later named cortisone and cortisol, with identical functions. As first they thought to be unimportant because they had little affect in mineral metabolism. In the late 1930s, however cortin was found to be active also in carbohydrate and protein metabolism, facilitating gluconeogenesis (62). In 1940 it was realized that adrenal cortex produces several steroids, two times of which, acting together, were essential to life. One was cortisone/cortisol, which came to be know as the glucocorticoid pr ""sugar hormone". The other was an unidentified mineralocorticoid, thirty times more potent than DOC, which remained in an "amorphous fraction" after all the know steroids have been removed from Kendall's cortical extract.
Until then the crude adrenal extract and DOC were prepared commercially, but the pure glucocorticoids were very scarce. By 1948 however a few grams of cortisone were available for clinical investigation, about Addison's disease was chosen for study. But Philip Hench, a rheumatologist at Mayo Clinic, pursued Kendall to provide enough to treat patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The affects were spectacular, and in 1950 Kendall, Hench, and Reichstaein were awarded Nobel Prize. There was an immediate clamor for cortisone, and soon a simpler method of preparation was found. ...
The potent mineralocorticoid in Kendall's amorphous fraction was isolated, analyzed, and synthesized between 1952 and 1955 by James Tait and Sylvia Simpson in London, Reichstein and workers at CIBA Laboratories in Basle, and their colleagues (91). It was named electrocortin at first and aldosterone later.
Soon after discovery of cortisone, active synthetic analogues, notably prednisone, prednisolone, and dexamethasone were introduces and proved useful therapeutically and in investigation of adrenal disease. Similarly fludrocortisone a potent synthetic analogy to aldosterone introduced in 1956 rapidly replaced DOC for replacement therapy.
Related work resulted in the discovery of other steroids, including androgens, estrogens, and progestogens from the adrenals and from the gonads. The physiological role of these other adrenal steroids were not known but they appeared to be important pathologically."
I only found reference (62) Albright, F. Cushing's syndrome. Harvey Lect 1943; 38: 123-86
Not a word about DHEA and hardly anything about progesterone, however the "the sense of well-being" produced by original cortin seems to be lost with the crude adrenal extract, and forgotten with the introduction of synthetic corticosteroids.

So I wonder if the cortin (part of cortin), that Emanuel M. Josephson considered to be therapeutic in myopia was actually DHEA and/or progesterone, by opposing cortisol? @haidut

 

[aguilaroja]

Just some food for thought.
How I got here:
1. Book Let's Get Well by Adelle Davis (1965 edition), Chapter 29. Eye problems and diseases, p. 353 Nearsightedness:
"That nutrition plays a role in the prevention of nearsightedness - another manifestation of stress - was forcefully brought out during the depression years, when the incidence in school children jumped from 25 percent in 1925 to 72 percent in 1935 ...
Josephson E. M., Nearsightedness Is Preventable, Chedney Press, New York, N.Y., 1939
... The History of Endocrine Surgery by R. B. Welbourn (1990), p.162 The search for cortical hormones:
... Until about 1940 in was assumed that cortin is was a single substance and that it's essential role was the regulation of menial metabolism. ..
Not a word about DHEA and hardly anything about progesterone, however the "the sense of well-being" produced by original cortin seems to be lost with the crude adrenal extract, and forgotten with the introduction of synthetic corticosteroids.
So I wonder if the cortin (part of cortin), that Emanuel M. Josephson considered to be therapeutic in myopia was actually DHEA and/or progesterone, by opposing cortisol? @haidut

AFAIK cortin historically referred to adrenal cortex extract in aqueous solution, presumably with multiple adrenal cortex hormones.

From Thom Rooke's Quest for Cortisone (2012):
"Specifically, two Princeton scientists, Wilbur Willis Swingle and Joseph John Pfiffner, were preparing extracts of the
adrenal cortex–extracts that seemed to contain a substance that was necessary for life. Frank A. Hartman of the State University of New York at Buffalo was also making extracts of the adrenal cortex; he began calling the yet-to-be identified essential ingredient "cortin." The name stuck, and for the next two decades scientists probing the activities of the adrenal cortex would describe their work as "the quest for cortin." Swingle and Pfiffner demonstrated the physiological potency of their particular solution (which was extracted from beef adrenal glands) by testing it on cats that had undergone bilateral adrenal gland removal. As long as the solution was available, the glandless cats lived."

Josephson might have been part way to a wider view, by noting the soggy and less elastic state of tissues when metabolism is problematic.

EFFECT OF CORTIN ON INTRA-OCULAR TENSION IN GLAUCOMA. - PubMed - NCBI

"EFFECT OF CORTIN ON INTRA-OCULAR TENSION IN GLAUCOMA
"I have found that the heightened intra-ocular tension of simple glaucoma responds with startling promptness to the administration of the adrenal cortex hormone, cortin. In cases which are uncomplicated by degenerative changes of the ocular tissues, even though of long standing, drops of pressure from levels as high as 50 mm of mercury (Schiotz) to normal level have been noted in the period of half an hour; after injection of cortin. Parallel to this drop in tension, there occurs a rise in visual acuity, often to normal level, and relief from the sense of tension and pain."

"These findings throw a new light on the mechanism of the rapid changes of intra-ocular tension in glaucoma.... For the work of Swingle, Pfiffner and others has shown that deficiency of cortin results in increased permeability of the capillaries and vessels to the water and mineral content of the plasm. Rapid increase in secretion of fluid into a densely encapsulated organ such as the eye would result in a rapid rise of the tension. In the same manner can be explained the response to cortin therapy of deafness associated with increased intra-ocular tension and Meniere's syndrome.

"Response of progressive myopia to cortin therapy leads to the hypothesis that the mechanism of this disorder is similar to that of glaucoma, a disturbance of the water-salt metabolism. The difference in the end-result is explainable in terms of elasticity of the tissues of the eye; the more elastic sclera of the younger eye yielding and stretching into the myopic state, and the less elastic sclera of the older eye forcing a giving-way and compression of the less dense tissues of the parenchyma of the eye, optic nerve disk and ciliary body.

"This hypothesis on the nature of myopia is borne out by the finding of a group of cases of progressive myopia in school children which present the symptomatology of glaucoma-headaches, halo formation, cupping of the optic disk and slightly heightened tension. These cases show other signs of endocrine imbalance; in the females among whom the incidence is higher, there are disorders of menstruation....data points to correlation of disorders of puberty and sex development and the development of myopia. Evidence...indicates the whole series of disorders are fundamentally in the nature of a profound alteration of the water-salt metabolism, ....sex development may be basically an alteration in the water-salt metabolism or conditioned by it. The administration of cortin to these cases has effected a reduction or arrest of the myopic process and an amelioration of associated symptomatology."

FURTHER EXPERIENCE WITH CORTIN THERAPY

 

[noordinary]

AFAIK cortin historically referred to adrenal cortex extract in aqueous solution, presumably with multiple adrenal cortex hormones.

From Thom Rooke's Quest for Cortisone (2012):
"Specifically, two Princeton scientists, Wilbur Willis Swingle and Joseph John Pfiffner, were preparing extracts of the
adrenal cortex–extracts that seemed to contain a substance that was necessary for life. Frank A. Hartman of the State University of New York at Buffalo was also making extracts of the adrenal cortex; he began calling the yet-to-be identified essential ingredient "cortin." The name stuck, and for the next two decades scientists probing the activities of the adrenal cortex would describe their work as "the quest for cortin." Swingle and Pfiffner demonstrated the physiological potency of their particular solution (which was extracted from beef adrenal glands) by testing it on cats that had undergone bilateral adrenal gland removal. As long as the solution was available, the glandless cats lived."

Josephson might have been part way to a wider view, by noting the soggy and less elastic state of tissues when metabolism is problematic.

EFFECT OF CORTIN ON INTRA-OCULAR TENSION IN GLAUCOMA. - PubMed - NCBI

"EFFECT OF CORTIN ON INTRA-OCULAR TENSION IN GLAUCOMA
"I have found that the heightened intra-ocular tension of simple glaucoma responds with startling promptness to the administration of the adrenal cortex hormone, cortin. In cases which are uncomplicated by degenerative changes of the ocular tissues, even though of long standing, drops of pressure from levels as high as 50 mm of mercury (Schiotz) to normal level have been noted in the period of half an hour; after injection of cortin. Parallel to this drop in tension, there occurs a rise in visual acuity, often to normal level, and relief from the sense of tension and pain."

"These findings throw a new light on the mechanism of the rapid changes of intra-ocular tension in glaucoma.... For the work of Swingle, Pfiffner and others has shown that deficiency of cortin results in increased permeability of the capillaries and vessels to the water and mineral content of the plasm. Rapid increase in secretion of fluid into a densely encapsulated organ such as the eye would result in a rapid rise of the tension. In the same manner can be explained the response to cortin therapy of deafness associated with increased intra-ocular tension and Meniere's syndrome.

"Response of progressive myopia to cortin therapy leads to the hypothesis that the mechanism of this disorder is similar to that of glaucoma, a disturbance of the water-salt metabolism. The difference in the end-result is explainable in terms of elasticity of the tissues of the eye; the more elastic sclera of the younger eye yielding and stretching into the myopic state, and the less elastic sclera of the older eye forcing a giving-way and compression of the less dense tissues of the parenchyma of the eye, optic nerve disk and ciliary body.

"This hypothesis on the nature of myopia is borne out by the finding of a group of cases of progressive myopia in school children which present the symptomatology of glaucoma-headaches, halo formation, cupping of the optic disk and slightly heightened tension. These cases show other signs of endocrine imbalance; in the females among whom the incidence is higher, there are disorders of menstruation....data points to correlation of disorders of puberty and sex development and the development of myopia. Evidence...indicates the whole series of disorders are fundamentally in the nature of a profound alteration of the water-salt metabolism, ....sex development may be basically an alteration in the water-salt metabolism or conditioned by it. The administration of cortin to these cases has effected a reduction or arrest of the myopic process and an amelioration of associated symptomatology."

FURTHER EXPERIENCE WITH CORTIN THERAPY

Thank you for all the info!

 

[Lolinaa]

@aguilaroja: great finding. Thank you so much. All those books look so interesting.

I start to understand so many things thanks to you guys.