} COVER FEATURE
Hormones
TALKING ABOUT
by, Donald Aulds, MD
WHAT ARE HORMONES? Hormones are chemicals produced in certain organs of the body and released into the blood stream to act on other areas of the body. Some hormones may have mainly a single action while other such as estrogen may act on multiple areas of the body and produce multiple actions in the body.
Hormones are probably one of the most misunderstood chemicals in the body. The term hormones can stand for multiple chemicals including those from the thyroid gland, adrenal gland, pancreas and of course the ovaries or testes. I will try to approach this from the standpoint of a question and answer approach. 10
Inside Medicine | Spring Issue 2019
HOW DO HORMONES WORK? Hormones act on areas of the cell called receptor sites. The receptor site in the presence of the hormone releases some response in the cell to produce the response that is intended to occur. Some of the receptor sites may be blocked by other chemicals to reduce the response to the hormone. Also, synthetic hormones may incompletely act on the receptor site and not produce the expected response. WHY DO I BEGIN TO HAVE SYMPTOMS RELATED TO HORMONE CHANGES? This is a complicated question, but in order to try to simplify the answer, you must understand that each hormone in the body has a time in which maximum production of the hormone is achieved and production will begin to decrease beyond this point. As a good example, testosterone production peaks in a woman in her later 20’s and in a man in the early 30’s. After this point of life, testosterone will drop in production and symptoms of decreased testosterone can begin. Some conditions or diseases will accelerate the loss of certain hormones. WHY DO I FEEL TIRED OR CAN’T SLEEP? These two problems are often two of the most common complaints that I hear from patients. The can be multifactorial and can not be helped often without measuring hormone levels. These studies can include evaluation of sex hormones, thyroid hormones, and stress hormones. IF HORMONES LEVELS ARE NORMAL, WHY DO I STILL HAVE PROBLEM? Reactions to hormones are also affected by other chemicals of the body particularly vitamin D. Vitamin D is con-
