Figure 1

Appearance of DHEA-derived label (left) and levels of DHEA-sulfate (right) in plasma, after the administration of a gavage of tritium-labelled oleoyl-DHEA (upper row) or DHEA (lower row) to male and female Wistar rats. Males: white circles, solid lines, females: black circles, dashed lines. The data are the mean ± sem of 6 different animals. The label data have been converted into equivalent DHEA concentrations using the specific activity of the gavages. The DHEA-sulfate levels were directly measured by radioimmunoassay. Statistical significance of the differences (2-way ANOVAs). The effect of "time" was significant (P < 0.05) for all groups tested. There were no significant differences between sexes for plasma label concentration, and for each sex there were no significant differences either between both types of gavage. There were differences (P < 0.001) between sexes in both oleoyl-DHEA and DHEA gavage-groups for DHEA-sulfate levels, but no significant differences were found for each sex group as to the type of gavage administered.