A New Spectrophotometric Method for the Estimation of 3-Beta-Hydroxy-Sterols

Abstract

In recent years a great deal of attention has been focused ip on lipid metabolism and in particular upon cholesterol metabolism. Therefore the estimation of cholesterol and its esters in body fluids has assumed prime importance. There are at least two reasons for this. One is that cholesterol and its esters bear a close relationship to the other steroids in the body, and the other is that cholesterol is believed to be involved m some way in certain degenerative changes which occur in the walls of arteries, thus bringing about the condition known as atherosclerosis. | Accumulations of cholesterol are not necessarily dependent upon excess dietary intake of cholesterol since the body is capable of synthesizing its own cholesterol from small molecular units such as acetate (1, 2). Similarly, emotional stress situations can increase the cholesterol concentration of body fluids regardless of dietary restrictions (3). | Although cholesterol concentrations per se do not explain in toto the derangement of lipid metabolism or indicate the onset of atherosclerosis, a very complex disease which develops insidiously over a period of many years, nevertheless a great deal of emphasis has been brought to bear upon the importance of determining cholesterol and correlating cholesterol values with other findings (4, 5, 6). Hence the need for an accurate and simple method for the estimation of cholesterol in body fluids has been ever present.