ABSTRACT
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter When I tell you that a cat must have three different
names.” The Naming of Cats in Old Possum’s Book of Practical
Cats, TS Eliot.
All steroid hormones are synthesized from cholesterol and are categorized in the human into six different classes or families according to activity determined in early bioassays. Like T.S. Eliot’s cats, each has three different names (Box 4.1). The ‘classical’ steroid-producing endocrine glands (notwithstanding the kidneys that produce the active steroid metabolite of vitamin D) are the adrenal cortex and the gonads.
