Effect
The main effect of cortisone is the suppression of inflammatory processes and exaggerated immune reactions. The symptoms of the inflammatory reaction disappear with the administration of cortisone, but the cause itself is not combated! Basically, cortisone is merely the inactive form of the body’s own hormone cortisol.
Cortisone itself has no biological effect whatsoever, as it is not able to bind to the corresponding cells due to its chemical structure. It must therefore first be converted into the active form within the body. Cortisol belongs to the group of steroid hormones, more precisely it is the most important glucocorticoid.
As it belongs to the fat-soluble hormones, it is able to enter the cell and bind to important structures. It is formed in the adrenal cortex from the starting material cholesterol and from there is released into the bloodstream. Both the rate and the amount of cholesterol is strictly controlled by the pituitary gland and is constantly adapted to the body’s energy requirements.
In the course of long-term stress situations, cortisol is increasingly produced and released into the bloodstream. In this context it has a similar effect to adrenaline and noradrenaline, but the effect starts later. For very interested readers: This delayed effect is due to the fact that cortisone cannot bind to a so-called G-protein coupled receptor.
G-protein-coupled receptors are cell surface receptors that are activated after hormone binding on their side facing the cell interior. After activation, they trigger a cascade in the cell interior via various chemical processes, which ultimately has a regulatory (i.e. activating or inhibiting) effect on the behaviour of the cell. In the case of cortisol, binding to such a receptor is not possible.
On the one hand, this is due to the fact that the hormone does not fit into the binding site of a G protein-coupled receptor and, on the other hand, that it can penetrate the cell membrane and bind to receptors inside the cell (intracellular receptors). Such an intracellular receptor can directly influence the regulation, i.e. the switching on and off, of different genes. By switching on genes that promote the formation of specific enzymes, cortisol is able to influence metabolic pathways in a targeted manner.
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