Hormones—His and Hers

A hormone, like a neurotransmitter, is a chemical messenger that carries signals from one cell to another. The difference is neurotransmitters stick close to home, moving in a highly directed way from 

But hormones, rather than racing to the neighbors next door, take a scenic route and visit faraway places. They travel from the endocrine glands where they are produced through the bloodstream and on to distant sites such as the heart, lungs, or brain. 

We produce all kinds of hormones, but there are two major classes peptides (typical examples are insulin and thyroid-stimulating hormone), and steroids (which include the sex hormones estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, as well as the stress hormone, cortisol). 

What does this all have to do with the brain Well, some of these hormones profoundly affect the way we think and feel. One of the first things physicians generally check when someone complains of 

It is the study of the steroid sex hormones, though, where science is finally beginning to connect the dots between chemotherapy and certain hormonal therapies and demonstrate how they affect the mind. 

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Insulin may also be administered in some cases of type 2 diabetes to complement other drugs (oral antidiabetic agents) and to supplement endogenous insulin release.64,70 In type 2 diabetes (NIDDM), exogenous insulin basically makes up the difference between the patient s endogenous hormone production and his or her specific insulin requirement. In addition, many patients with advanced cases of type 2 diabetes ultimately require supplemental insulin because other interventions (diet, exercise, other drugs) are not able to adequately control this disease.35... 

Following the completion of her Ph.D. in 1939, Henley accompanied Harington on his move to the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in Hampstead. Her field of specialisation was iodoproteins, and her research on them over the rest of her career was to garner her worldwide fame. The Second World War disrupted her research, as she was seconded to various war-work projects. The last of these, helping the survivors at the liberation of a concentration camp, proved so traumatic that she became a heavy smoker, the probable cause of her death 25 years later. In 1952, she isolated the thyroid hormone, triiodothyronine. The discovery of this new and highly unusual hormone contributed largely to her election as Fellow of the Royal Society only two years later. 

This disease is a collection of disorders which result from either lack of insulin (a hormone secreted by the pancreas) or factors which interfere with the actions of this hormone. Most of the tissues in the body depend upon insulin for the promotion of the flow of sugars, fats, and amino acids into cells. The untreated diabetic literally starves to death in the midst of abundance since his or her blood may be loaded with nutrients which cannot get into the cells where they are needed. Diabetes is now the fifth leading cause of death by disease in the United States. There are two major forms in which the disease usually appears adult-onset diabetes, and juvenile diabetes. Brief descriptions follow. 

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