Can hormones improve your sex life, keep you young, banish wrinkles or turn you into a super athlete?
Q. What are hormones?
A. Hormones are gland secretions that stimulate specific functions in various organs. When the gland don't supply enough of a certain hormone, synthetic hormones can be administered medically.
Hormones are used to communicate between organs and tissues to regulate physiological and behavioral activities, such as digestion, metabolism, respiration, tissue function, sensory perception, sleep, excretion, lactation, stress, growth and development, movement, reproduction, and mood. Hormones affect distant cells by binding to specific receptor proteins in the target cell resulting in a change in cell function. When a hormone binds to the receptor, it results in the activation of a signal transduction pathway. This may lead to cell type-specific responses that include rapid non-genomic effects or slower genomic responses where the hormones acting through their receptors activate gene transcription resulting in increased expression of target proteins.
Q. Are treatments with the female hormone estrogen really a "fountain of youth"?
A. No. This myth has persisted ever since scientists discovered in the 1960s that a decrease in estrogen production leads to menopause, whish is often considered a sign of aging.
Replacement of estrogen does not prevent menopause. It does relieve some menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, insomnia and vaginal dryness.
Q. Do any hormones help prevent aging in other ways?
A. No hormone prevents old age, but research on animals at Syracuse University indicates that the homone somatomedin may reverse the effects of aging on muscles by regenerating muscle tissue that has wasted away.
Q. Can hormones improve yoursex life?
A. They sometimes work for women, but they don't for men. Certain hormornes can helpsome women who have problems with vaginal dryness and loss of libido.
Q. Will using a hormone cream banish
A. No. Rubbing hormone cream on the skin doesn't affect it all. However, taking hormones may help firm up the breasts.
Those are just some of the most frequently asked questions about hormones - and here, according to experts, are the answers to those and other questions:
Q. Are there risks in taking estrogen?
A. Yes. Uterine cancer is three to eight times more common in postmenopausal women using estrogen. And estrogen should never be taken by some women, in cluding those wtih histories of breast or uterine cancer, liver
desease, fibrocystic breast disease or coronary heart disease.
Q. If synthetic hormones and steroids can produce superathletes, why aren't these drugs legal?
A. There is no documented proof that these hormones produce great athletes, but there are documented cases in which these drugs caused serious health problems for athletes.
