1. Hormones are the body’s chemical messengers. They help us grow or respond to changing circumstances. They impact our mood. There’s pretty much nothing, physical, mental or emotional that isn’t affected by hormones, so don’t underestimate their importance.
2. Most hormonal problems can, broadly speaking, be divided into two categories. Your body is producing a certain hormone to excess, or it’s deficient in a certain hormone. In both cases, you may need medication to get it back to normal levels.
3. An obvious example is diabetes. A key aspect of diabetes is the hormone insulin, which either isn’t produced properly or doesn’t work properly. Now insulin can be produced in a lab and injected into a person who needs it.
4. Other hormone deficiencies may be treated with medication, such as if you have an overactive or underactive thyroid. If you have adrenal problems relating to a tumor on your adrenal glands, that may require surgery. Hormone treatments come in many forms.
5. There are other situations where you may need hormones. Transgender people experiencing gender dysphoria may use cross-sex hormones such as testosterone or estrogen to help transition. Hormone replacement therapy can be used to manage menopausal symptoms. Hormones are even in some cancer treatments.
6. We produce hormones in glands known as endocrine glands. These include the hypothalamus, pineal gland, pituitary gland, parathyroid gland, thyroid gland, adrenal gland, pancreas, ovaries and testes. As they all produce different hormones, they all need to be working properly.
7. Some of these glands actually send hormones to other glands to tell them they need to release different hormones. It’s a complicated process known as the endocrine system and it’s very easy to throw the whole thing out of balance if just one part goes wrong.
8. Some hormones are working constantly. Others are particularly prominent at certain times. For example, puberty sees a dramatic increase in testosterone and/or estrogen and progesterone. We see our highest adrenaline and cortisol levels when we’re stressed.
9. With sex hormones, we might think of testosterone as male and estrogen as female, but everyone has both in some amount.
10. A doctor who deals with hormones and the issues they cause when they’re not working properly is an endocrinologist. It’s a complicated field of study, so if you have any doubts, you may need to talk to one of them.
