title: Respiratory distress and beta-endorphin-like immunoreactivity in humans.
abstract: Beta-endorphin-like immunoreactivity was determined in the plasma of twenty patients suffering from hypoxia of various etiologies and in twenty healthy adult volunteers who served as controls. Mean beta-endorphin-like immunoreactivity in the hypoxic patients was 53.2 +/- 5.5 (SEM) pg/ml, as compared to the volunteer subjects in whom the mean level was 6.2 +/- 1.9 pg/ml (P less than 0.01). Significant negative correlations were present between both arterial pH (r = -0.85; P less than 0.01) and arterial PO2 (r = -0.80; P less than 0.01) and beta-endorphin-like immunoreactivity. These findings seem to lend support to the hypothesis that hypoxia and acidosis represent stressful conditions which may stimulate the release of beta-endorphin in humans.
mesh_terms: D000142:Acidosis, Respiratory / Q000097:blood; D000328:Adult; D004723:Endorphins / Q000097:blood*; D006801:Humans; D000860:Hypoxia / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male; D011863:Radioimmunoassay; D012120:Respiration Disorders / Q000097:blood*; D001615:beta-Endorphin
chemical_list: D004723:Endorphins; D001615:beta-Endorphin