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Ageing and the sensitivity of the adrenal gland to physiological doses of ACTH in man.

Healthy men and women aged 19-38 or 67-83, in whom endogenous ACTH secretion was suppressed with dexamethasone, were given successive injections of 60 ng, 150 ng and 250 micrograms ACTH(1-24) at hourly intervals, and blood samples for measurement of plasma cortisol were taken every 10 min. The response to each injection was taken as the increase in cortisol concentration 20 min later, when there was a peak with the lower doses, with allowance for disappearance of cortisol produced after the previous injection. On average, the responses to 60 and 150 ng ACTH were about 0.4 and 0.7 respectively of the response to 250 micrograms. There were no consistent effects of age or sex on any index of adrenocortical sensitivity or responsiveness, but some groups showed isolated differences from both their age- and sex-matched counterparts: the response to 60 ng ACTH was low in young men, maximal responsiveness was low in elderly men and the slope of the dose-response curve was high in elderly women. In most of the elderly subjects, plasma ACTH was determined separately under normal conditions. It was negatively correlated with the cortisol responses to 60 and 150 ng ACTH, suggesting that differences in adrenal sensitivity between subjects contribute to the variability of plasma ACTH.