Men Have Hormones Too

YOU MIGHT REMEMBER
hormones from your sexcrazed
teen years. Or your
partner’s most recent crying
jag. But if you’re sitting there
smugly thinking that you’re
immune from hormonal chaos
just because you’re (a) no longer
a teenager and (b) male,
think again. In fact, if you
knew all the ways hormones
could mess up your life, you’d
probably start crying like a little
girl. Off -kilter hormone
distribution can make you
store too much fat, hamper
your ability to fi ght stress, and
cause you to eat when you’re
full. It can lead to metabolic
syndrome and diabetes and
can adversely aff ect your sleep
and sex life.
That’s a lot that can go
wrong. This is due to the
vast reach of your endocrine
system, which commands
body activity utilizing powerful
hormones. “It’s like your
body’s internal Internet,” says
pharmacologist John McLachlan,
Ph.D., director of the
center for bioenvironmental
research at Tulane University.
“Your hypothalamus and
pituitary glands are the control
centers, like servers sending
out messages going back and forth among your organs. Your pancreas,
adrenal glands, thyroid, and testes are all part
of this fi nely tuned system.”
That fi ne-tuning increases the system’s vulnerability,
as it relies on complex feedback to
regulate itself. “If that feedback is distorted, it
can disrupt the process,” says Vivian Fonseca,
M.D., chief of endocrinology at Tulane University’s
health sciences center.
Use our guide to ensure your hormones are
doing their jobs.