Relationship of some endogenous sex steroid hormones to leukocyte arylsulphatase A activities in pre- and postmenopausal healthy women.

This study was planned to investigate whether the physiological variations in endogenous gonadal steroid hormones during fertile period to menopause might affect the Arylsulphatase A (ARS-A) activities in leukocytes in healthy women. In premenopausal women, means of the leukocyte ARS-A activity were significantly highest at ovulatory phase, and lowest at early follicular phase. In contrast, the mean leukocyte ARS-A activity in postmenopausal women was approximately equivalent to the mean leukocyte enzyme in cycling women at early follicular phase in whom the lowest enzymatic activity was observed. The results of our study, therefore, concluded that gonadal steroid released physiologically into the bloodstream might be expected to stimulate the lysosomal system thereby leading to an enhancement in leukocyte ARS-A activity.