What is hormones?

Although the amount of hormones in the human body is not large, they have a vital impact on health. Lack or excess of hormones can cause various physical diseases and bring many inconveniences to daily life. Well, next I will explain to you some related content about hormones, I hope it will be useful to you!

According to chemical structure, they are roughly divided into four categories:

The first category is steroids, such as adrenal cortex hormones and sex hormones.

The second category is amino acid derivatives, including thyroxine, adrenal medullary hormone, pineal hormone, etc.

The structure of the third type of hormones is peptides and proteins, such as hypothalamic hormones, pituitary hormones, gastrointestinal hormones, calcitonin, etc.

The fourth category is fatty acid derivatives, such as prostaglandins.

effect

Hormones are important substances that regulate the normal activities of the body. None of them can initiate a new metabolic process in the body. They do not directly participate in the conversion of matter or energy, but only directly or indirectly promote or slow down the original metabolic process in the body. As growth and development are both inherent metabolic processes of the human body, an increase in growth hormone or other related hormones can speed up this process, while a decrease will slow down growth and development. Hormones play an important regulatory role in human reproduction, growth, development, various other physiological functions, behavioral changes, and adaptation to internal and external environments. Once hormone secretion is out of balance, it will cause disease.

Hormones only exert specific effects on certain tissues or cells (called target tissues or target cells). Every tissue and cell in the human body can become the target tissue or target cell of this or that hormone. Each hormone can select one or several tissues or cells as its target tissue or target cell. For example, growth hormone can play a unique role in bones, muscles, connective tissues and internal organs, making the human body grow tall and strong. But muscle also serves as a target tissue for androgens and thyroxine.

Well, based on the above explanation, I believe everyone has a certain understanding of hormones. After being good at applying the knowledge you have learned, you can let hormones bring you very good effects and make your life more colorful.