Androgen glucuronides, instead of testosterone, as the new markers of androgenic activity in women
Fernand Labrie; Alain Bélanger; Patrick Bélanger; René Bérubé; Céline Martel; Leonello Cusan; José Gomez; Bernard Candas; Isabelle Castiel; Véronique Chaussade; Claire Deloche; Jacques Leclaire
The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology2006
Summary (paraphrased)
Serum testosterone has correlated poorly with clinical androgen status in women because much androgen is made locally in peripheral tissues from DHEA and never reaches the circulation in active form. The authors measured androsterone glucuronide (ADT-G) and 3α-diol glucuronide — the obligatory end-products of total androgen elimination — by LC-MS/MS in 377 healthy postmenopausal and 47 premenopausal women, finding no correlation with serum testosterone. They conclude ADT-G and 3α-diol-G reflect the total androgen pool and are superior markers of androgenic activity, potentially identifying true androgen deficiency relevant to osteoporosis, metabolic, and sexual dysfunction.
Why it’s in the corpus
establishes ADT-G as the marker of total androgen activity — the read-out for a clearance-defect model
Why it’s in the systems review
This paper reframes androsterone glucuronide from waste product to the field's best window on total androgen exposure — exactly the quantity the buildup hypothesis claims is disturbed when glucuronidation fails. For the causal-pathway search it supplies the biomarker logic: if UGT-mediated clearance is defective, ADT-G dynamics are where the lesion shows up, and serum testosterone will miss it. It also connects the corpus's hormonal-axes records to measurable clinical chemistry (LC-MS/MS ADT-G), which is what a future treatment-candidate evaluation would need to monitor.