They are linked to everything from Parkinson’s to weight gain, anxiety and an excessive libido. And yet, so much of how they operate within our body remains mysterious.
I’m talking, of course, about hormones. Produced not only in the brain, but also in our gut and even our body fat, these infinitesimal chemical substances do nothing short of making us who we are. Put simply: we are our hormones.
For while our brain is central to all the decisions we
A UN panel setting global care standards for trans adults has been accused of cronyism, with four fifths of its members being flagged for conflicts of interest and even of having a financial stake in the group’s work.
The LGBT Courage Coalition, a US-based campaign group, has accused the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) of appointing experts who are set to gain from the guidelines they’re tasked with writing.
Several are medical professionals with practices that provide cross-sex hormones and
Across the internet, a biological scapegoat has emerged for almost any mysterious medical symptom affecting women. Struggling with chronic fatigue, hair loss, brain fog, or dwindling sex drive? When no obvious explanation is at hand, an out-of-whack endocrine system must be to blame. Women have too much cortisol, vloggers and influencers say; or not enough thyroxine, or the wrong ratio of progesterone to estradiol. Social media is brimming with advice from self-proclaimed hormone “gurus” and health coaches; the tag #hormoneimbalance
“Leptin is not so much the trigger for puberty as it’s permissive,” Paul Kaplowitz, a professor emeritus of pediatrics in the division of endocrinology at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., told me. “An adequate level of fat tissue is a requirement for puberty to progress. But we don’t know for sure if fat is the only reason why girls in the twenty-first century are maturing earlier than girls in the latter part of the twentieth century. Obesity is a
