[Sir Kenyth]

Originally posted by WillowIX: quote: Originally posted by Sir Kenyth: Interesting! Which one's? Are they growth related? Would they survive the digestive processes in significant quantities? Definitely so. Sex hormones use cholesterol as building block. I'd call them growth related wouldn't you? All steroid hormones are derived from cholesterol. Cortisol is another one and that too is related to growth. The nice part about animal hormones is that they are able to promote cancers in humans (for info try here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed you should be able to find some articles there, hopefully [img]smile.gif[/img] ). So there is definitely the possibility for hormones to pass over to humans. Noted your last question. Cholesterol can not be catabolized by the human body period. Instead we have other means to get rid off it (bile salts for instance).

[/QUOTE]I have conflicting information then. The cholesterol cannot be destroyed, but the sex horomones built on cholesterol surely can. I recall an experiment where a rat liver sucessfully processed many times the natural amount of testosterone found in the male human body and was not stressed. The human liver should be able to handle any anabolic horomones found in our diet without breaking a sweat. I'm not as sure about stress horomones, such as cortisol. Dealing with dietary horomones would have to be built into any carniverous or omniverous animals digestive system. If horomones can pass the digestive tract, then why can't steroid treatments be taken orally without being chemically modified to survive the digestive system?