Effect of epinephrine on the peripheral metabolism of thyroxine.

10 normal young men received repository epinephrine repeatedly for 4 days during the course of a radiothyroxine (radio-T4) disappearance curve. During epinephrine administration, serum radio-T4 disappearance rate (k) slowed abruptly, fecal clearance decreased, urinary clearance was initially unchanged but later decreased slightly, volume of thyroxine distribution decreased, and external radioactivity over the liver remained unchanged. Beginning on day 2 of epinephrine and persisting at least 1 day after epinephrine was discontinued, serum thyroxine-binding globulin (TBG) maximal binding capacity increased, thyroxine-binding prealbumin (TBPA) maximal binding capacity decreased, and free T4 iodine decreased. Stable serum T4 iodine decreased during the experiment. Three indexes, namely the free T4 iodine, the reciprocal of TBG capacity, and the urinary radio-T4 "clearance" changed in parallel, suggesting that the increase in TBG capacity was responsible for a delayed decrease in radio-T4 metabolism. However, these changes were temporally dissociated from the decrease in k, which began and ended abruptly with initiation or discontinuing of epinephrine administration. This dissociation is unexplained, but may be caused by alterations in T4 binding in tissue sites.