Table 2.

Sex hormone concentrations

		Women
		NAT group			OCP group
	Men	Menstrual phase	Follicular phase	Luteal phase	Placebo phase	Early active phase	Late active phase
Estradiol, pmol/l	119 ± 40	126 ± 75	230 ± 207c,e	649 ± 490c,d,e	97 ± 45f	<92g	<92g
Progesterone, nmol/l	0.8 ± 0.4a	1.1 ± 0.5	1.0 ± 0.7	43.6 ± 38.3c,d,e	0.8 ± 0.6	0.7 ± 1.0	0.7 ± 1.0
Testosterone, nmol/l	20.1 ± 9.7a,b	1.0 ± 0.6	1.1 ± 0.8	0.9 ± 0.8	1.2 ± 0.8	<0.7h	0.7 ± 0.4

Values are medians ± interquartile range; n = 20 men, 15 women in the naturally cycling (NAT) group, and 15 women in the oral contraceptive pill (OCP) group (for the OCP group, n = 15 because of an inability to acquire a blood sample from 3 women at one or two visits). Comparison of men, NAT women during the menstrual phase, and OCP women during the placebo phase: Kruskal-Wallis test with significant effects followed by Mann-Whitney U-test with Bonferroni’s correction (P < 0.017):

^avs. NAT menstrual phase and

^bvs. OCP placebo phase. Within- and between-group comparison of NAT and OCP: Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Mann-Whitney U-test, respectively, with Bonferroni’s corrections (P < 0.0056):

^cvs. menstrual phase,

^dvs. follicular phase,

^evs. analogous OCP phase, and

^fvs. late active phase. Endogenous hormones are suppressed in OCP.

^gArchitect estradiol assay has an analytic sensitivity of <92 pmol/l and has no cross-reactivity with synthetic estrogen.

^hImmulite 2000 testosterone assay has an analytic sensitivity of <0.7 nmol/l.