01 Jul 10 Things You Need to Know About Your Hormones
Beautiful mixed race woman having moments of peace while floating in the pool at the wellness resort.
Almost everyone knows the basics of what hormones do, but most people would be astonished if they knew just how many functions within our bodies these amazing molecules control. These go way beyond the sexual functions we commonly think about, down to even obscure things we didn’t even know existed.
To begin, a good definition of a hormone is needed. They are the messengers of the endocrine system which also consists of the glands and the target tissues they regulate. Hormones are generally smaller molecules which are secreted by one part of the body (a gland) to control the function of another part of the body. We commonly think of the term hormone to mean our sex hormones, but there are other hormones which control broad ranges of functions like digestion, metabolism, respiration, sleep, lactation, growth and development among others. But we will concentrate in this article on the sex hormones.
For women, there are 3 primary categories of sex hormones; estrogen, progesterone, and androgens.
1. Estrogens: control vasomotor symptoms, mood, reduce risk of osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, colon cancer., libido.
2. Progesterone: oppose many functions of estrogen, decrease breast cancer risk, osteoporosis risk, help libido,
3. Androgens (testosterone, DHEA) : brain function-less depression, more energy, better mental acuity), osteoporosis (anabolic vs anti-catabolic for estrogen), reduce cholesterol and triglycerides, good for skin, less risk of diabetes because it makes the body more sensitive to insulin, muscle mass thus weight control.
