The invention describes new compounds as pharmaceutical active ingredients, which have in vitro a higher affinity to estrogen receptor preparations from rat prostates than to estrogen receptor preparations from rat uteri and in vivo a preferential action on bone rather than the uterus, their production, their therapeutic use and pharmaceutical dispensing forms that contain the new compounds.The new compounds are 16.alpha.- and 16.beta.-hydroxy-estra-1,3,5(10)-estratrienes, which carry additional substituents on the steroid skeleton and can have one or more additional double bonds in the B-, C- and/or D-rings.