{"doi":"10.1210/jendso/bvad079","title":"Interplay of Cortisol, Testosterone, and Abdominal Fat Mass in Normal-weight Women With Polycystic Ovary Syndrome","abstract":"Abstract Context Ovarian and adrenal steroidogenesis underlie endocrine-metabolic dysfunction in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Adipocytes express aldo-keto reductase 1C3 and type 1 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase, which modulate peripheral androgen and cortisol production. Objectives To compare serum adrenal steroids, including 11-oxygenated androgens (11-oxyandrogens), cortisol, and cortisone between normal-weight women with PCOS and body mass index- and age-matched ovulatory women with normal-androgenic profiles (controls), and assess whether adrenal steroids associate with abdominal adipose deposition. Design Prospective, cross-sectional, cohort study. Setting Academic medical center. Patients Twenty normal-weight women with PCOS and 20 body mass index-/age-matched controls. Intervention(s) Blood sampling, IV glucose tolerance testing, and total-body dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. Main Outcome Measure(s) Clinical characteristics, hormonal concentrations, and body fat distribution. Results Women with PCOS had higher serum total/free testosterone (T) and androstenedione (A4) levels and a greater android/gynoid fat mass than controls (androgens P < .001; android/gynoid fat mass ratio, P = .026). Serum total/free T and A4 levels correlated positively with android/gynoid fat mass ratio in all women combined (P < .025, all values). Serum 11ß-hydroxyA4, 11-ketoA4, 11ß-hydroxyT, 11-ketoT, cortisol, and cortisone levels were comparable between female types and unrelated to body fat distribution. Serum 11-oxyandrogens correlated negatively with % total body fat, but lost significance adjusting for cortisol. Serum cortisol levels, however, correlated inversely with android fat mass (P = .021), with a trend toward reduced serum cortisol to cortisone ratio in women with PCOS vs controls (P = .075), suggesting diminished 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase activity. Conclusion Reduced cortisol may protect against preferential abdominal fat mass in normal-weight PCOS women with normal serum 11-oxyandrogens.","journal":"Journal of the Endocrine Society","year":2023,"id":356905,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":18,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9557,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":364718,"name":"Adina F. Turcu","orcid":"0000-0001-9831-6190","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1105991,"name":"Haiping Liu","orcid":"0000-0001-7822-9487","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":58604,"name":"Tristan Grogan","orcid":"0000-0001-9471-2938","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":232461,"name":"David H. Abbott","orcid":"0000-0002-8249-263X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":748985,"name":"Gwyneth Lu","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1106433,"name":"Devyani Dharanipragada","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":304275,"name":"Gregorio D. Chazenbalk","orcid":"0000-0003-2065-3343","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":232460,"name":"Daniel A. Dumesic","orcid":"0000-0003-0387-1277","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":60,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:13:30.556819Z","pmid":"37404244","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}