Links for Keyword: Hormones & Behavior

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The unknown effect of the pill on teenage bones and brains

By Jessica Hamzelou TEENAGE pregnancies have hit record lows in the Western world, largely thanks to increased use of contraceptives of all kinds. But strangely, we don’t really know what hormonal contraceptives – pills, patches and injections that contain synthetic sex hormones – are doing to the developing bodies and brains of teenage girls. You’d be forgiven for assuming that we do. After all, the pill has been around for more than 50 years. It has been through many large trials assessing its effectiveness and safety, as have the more recent patches and rings, and the longer-lasting implants and injections. But those studies were done in adult women – very few have been in teenage girls. And biologically, there is a big difference. At puberty, our bodies undergo an upheaval as our hormones go haywire. It isn’t until our 20s that things settle down and our brains and bones reach maturity. “If a drug is going to be given to 11 and 12-year-olds, it needs to be tested in 11 and 12-year-olds,” says Joe Brierley of the clinical ethics committee at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. Legislation introduced in the US in 2003 and in Europe in 2007 was intended to make this happen but a New Scientist investigation can reveal that there is still scant data on what contraceptives actually do to developing girls. The few studies that have been done suggest that tipping the balance of oestrogen and progesterone during this time may have far-reaching effects, although there is not yet enough data to say whether we should be alarmed. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 12: Sex: Evolutionary, Hormonal, and Neural Bases; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 22407 - Posted: 07.08.2016

Everything you’ve heard about sniffing oxytocin might be wrong

By Simon Oxenham The “cuddle chemical”. The “moral molecule”. Oxytocin has quite a reputation – but much of what we thought about the so-called “love hormone” may be wrong. Oxytocin is made by the hypothalamus and acts on the brain, playing a role in bonding, sex and pregnancy. But findings that a sniff of the hormone is enough to make people trust each other more are being called into question after a string of studies failed to replicate classic experiments. Paul Zak at the Centre for Neuroeconomic Studies in Claremont, California, made his moral molecule hypothesis famous in 2011 when he memorably squirted a syringe of the hormone into the air while delivering a TED talk. When people sniff oxytocin before playing a money-lending game, it increases how much they trust each other, he explained. But several teams have been unable to replicate his finding. Last November, Gideon Nave at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and his colleagues reviewed studies of oxytocin, and concluded that the effect of nasal squirts of the hormone on trust are not reliably different from zero. Nave’s team aren’t the only ones calling the moral molecule hypothesis into question. In 2012, Moïra Mikolajczak at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) in Belgium and her colleagues published their own seminal findings backing a link between trust and oxytocin. They found that when people filled out an anonymous questionnaire about their sex lives and fantasies, they were less likely to seal the envelopes they returned them in if given a nasal dose of oxytocin beforehand. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 5: Hormones and the Brain; Chapter 12: Sex: Evolutionary, Hormonal, and Neural Bases
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex; Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex
Link ID: 22223 - Posted: 05.17.2016

Does "Pregnancy Brain" Exist?

Laura Glynn, Pregnancy brain typically refers to lapses in attention and memory. About 80 percent of new mothers report difficulties remembering things that once came naturally, and although not all studies support this, the weight of the evidence shows that during pregnancy, women exhibit measurable declines in important cognitive skills. But it's not all bad news. The maternal brain also features important enhancements. Mother rats score higher in tests of attention, foraging and planning than peers who have never given birth. These gains most likely render them better able to defend and provide for their pups. The benefits for human moms are less clear, but data are emerging that suggest human pregnancies initiate neural restructuring. A 2010 study found that in the first few months after giving birth, human females show changes in several key brain regions. Specifically, they often exhibit increased volume in the hypothalamus, striatum and amygdala—areas essential for emotional regulation and parental motivation—as well as in regions governing decision making and protective instincts. We can glean further evidence from behavioral changes during pregnancy. Many women exhibit blunted physiological and psychological responses to stress, which may afford mother and fetus protection from the potentially adverse effects of taxing situations. And in the postpartum period, the hormones that sustain breast-feeding maintain these dampened stress responses. © 2016 Scientific American

Think Like a Doctor: Packing on the Pounds Solved!

By Lisa Sanders, M.D. On Thursday we challenged Well readers to take on the case of a 59-year-old woman who had not been able to stop gaining weight. I presented the case as it was presented to the doctor who made the diagnosis and asked for the final piece of data provided by the patient as well as the correct cause of her symptoms. I thought the tough part of this case was something that few of my readers would have to contend with – that her complaints and past medical history were quite ordinary. Like many of us, she was overweight and she came to the doctor because she had difficulty losing weight. In the background she also had high blood pressure, obstructive sleep apnea and low back pain, knee pain and leg swelling. These are some of the most common reasons patients seek medical attention. Although her problems were run of the mill, the cause was not. And many of you had no difficulty spotting this zebra. The correct diagnosis was… Acromegaly The last piece of data, provided by the patient, was a photograph taken several years before. It was only by seeing the changes in the patient’s face that had occurred over the past few years that the doctor recognized that this patient’s problem was unusual. The first person to make this diagnosis was Dr. Clare O’Connor, a physician in the second year of her training in internal medicine. She plans to subspecialize in endocrinology. She says it was the swollen legs that didn’t compress that gave her the first clue. Well done. Acromegaly is a rare disease caused by an excess of growth hormone, usually due to a tumor in the pituitary gland of the brain. The disease’s name, from the Greek, serves as a fitting description of the most obvious symptoms: great (mega) extremity (akron). The tumor secretes a protein called growth hormone that signals the liver to produce a substance called insulin-like growth factor 1, or IGF 1, which in turn tells cells throughout the body to start proliferating. © 2016 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 5: Hormones and the Brain; Chapter 13: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex; Chapter 9: Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment
Link ID: 22097 - Posted: 04.12.2016

Testosterone beyond Sex

by Giuseppe Gangarossa When we think about sex hormones, notably estrogens and androgens, we usually associate them with sex, gender and body development. Like all hormones, they are chemical messengers, substances produced in one part of the body that go on to tell other parts what to do. However, we often have the tendency to forget the enormous impact that these steroid hormones have on brain functions. From animal studies, it has become clear that during early development, exposure of the brain to testosterone and estradiol, hormones present in both males and females, leads to irreversible changes in the nervous system (McCarthy et al., 2012). A growing and very appealing body of science suggests that sex hormones play a neuromodulatory role in cognitive brain function (Janowsky, 2006). Moreover, testosterone dysfunctions (hypogonadism, chemical castration, etc.) have shown to be associated with memory defects. However, in spite of these advances, it still remains an enigma how sex hormones affect the brain. In an interesting paper published in PLOS ONE, Picot and colleagues tried to fill in one piece of the puzzle. They investigated the neurobiological effects of cerebral androgen receptor (AR) ablation on hippocampal plasticity and cognitive performance in male rodents (Picot et al., 2016). Although several reports have already highlighted a link between sex hormones and cognitive function (Galea et al., 2008; Janowsky, 2006), much more needs to be done to fully elucidate the “non-sexual” functions of androgens.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 12: Sex: Evolutionary, Hormonal, and Neural Bases; Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex; Chapter 13: Memory and Learning
Link ID: 21930 - Posted: 02.25.2016

Testosterone Gel Has Modest Benefits for Men, Study Says

By GINA KOLATA More than a million men have smeared testosterone gels on their bodies in recent years, hoping it would rejuvenate them, energize them, and increase their libido. But until now, there has never been a rigorous study asking if there were any real benefits to testosterone therapy for healthy men with so-called low T. The first results of such research were published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. Although it found at best modest benefits, mostly in sexual functioning, it is a landmark study, said Dr. Eric S. Orwoll, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, because it provides the first credible data on testosterone’s effects on some of the problems it is thought to resolve. Some doctors said they hoped the modest results might bring some sanity to the testosterone frenzy of recent years. “Frankly,” said Dr. Sundeep Khosla, a dean at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, “there is a lot of abuse.” Men lured by advertisements seek the drug, and Dr. Khosla said he had heard of doctors who prescribed it without first measuring the man’s testosterone levels to see if they were low. “What I hope is that this will bring a more conservative approach,” Dr. Orwoll said. “There is a lot of prescribing out there, and it doesn’t look like, for the average man, it will have a big effect.” The study, led by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and funded by the National Institutes of Health and AbbVie, the maker of the testosterone gel AndroGel, involved 790 men 65 and older with low testosterone levels for their age. Testosterone levels normally fall as men age, but these men had levels on the low end — below 275 nanograms per deciliter of blood. Some of the men said they had lost their sexual drive, others said they were walking much slower than they used to, and others said they just felt blah, as if they had lost their zest for life. The men were randomly assigned to use AndroGel or a placebo for a year. © 2016 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 12: Sex: Evolutionary, Hormonal, and Neural Bases; Chapter 5: Hormones and the Brain
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex; Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex
Link ID: 21908 - Posted: 02.18.2016

Fish don’t want birth control, but scientists say they get it from your pill

By Darryl Fears Flushed down toilets, poured down sinks and excreted in urine, a chemical component in the pill wafts into sewage systems and ends up in various waterways where it collects in fairly heavy doses. That's where fish soak it up. A recent survey by the U.S. Geological Survey found that fish exposed to a synthetic hormone called 17a-ethinylestradiol, or EE2, produced offspring that struggled to fertilize eggs. The grandchildren of the originally exposed fish suffered a 30 percent decrease in their fertilization rate. The authors mulled the impact of what they discovered and decided it wasn't good. "If those trends continued, the potential for declines in overall population numbers might be expected in future generations," said Ramji Bhandari, a University of Missouri assistant research professor and a visiting scientist at USGS. "These adverse outcomes, if shown in natural populations, could have negative impacts on fish inhabiting contaminated aquatic environments." The study, with Bhandari as lead author, also determined that the chemical BPA, used widely in plastics, had a similar effect on the small Japanese medaka fish used for the research. The medaka was chosen because it reproduces quickly so that scientists can see results of subsequent generations faster than slow reproducing species such as smallmouth bass.

Links between health problems and endocrine-disrupting chemicals now stronger

By Puneet Kollipara The list of health problems that scientists can confidently link to exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals has grown to include diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity, a new scientific statement suggests. The statement, released today by the Endocrine Society, also adds support to the somewhat controversial idea that even minute doses of these chemicals can interfere with the activity of natural hormones, which play a major role in regulating physiology and behavior. But the report—which updates a similar statement released in 2009—is drawing sharp criticism from the chemical industry. An executive summary of the new statement, which synthesizes 1300 studies on endocrine disrupters, posits that scientists are more confident than ever before in linking these substances to a host of known health issues, including reproductive and developmental problems, thyroid impairment, certain reproductive cancers, and neurodevelopmental problems such as decreased IQ. But studies suggest those links can now be extended to heart and weight problems, and diabetes, says the executive summary's first author, Andrea C. Gore, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Texas, Austin. Six years ago, scientists couldn’t make such a strong case for those links, Gore says, because there weren’t enough good studies. “But this has really been an emerging field where there is much stronger evidence now,” Gore told reporters today on a conference call. Still, some toxicologists and industry groups have long disputed the assertion that endocrine disrupters can trigger effects at minimal doses; this idea can be tough to test in lab animals, which are usually exposed to high doses in toxicology studies. © 2015 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 5: Hormones and the Brain
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex
Link ID: 21454 - Posted: 09.29.2015

Boosting estrogen, only in the brain

By Sarah Schwartz Researchers have developed a chemical that transforms into a powerful hormone once inside a rat — but only in the brain, not the body. A protein in rats’ brains turns a chemical nicknamed DHED into the hormone estrogen, scientists report July 22 in Science Translational Medicine. This targeted treatment could provide estrogen to the brain and avoid potentially dangerous side effects in the body, the researchers say. “This is an interesting breakthrough,” says neuroendocrinologist Bruce McEwen of the Rockefeller University in New York City. The idea of treatments that affect the brain but not the body, or the body but not the brain, could be useful in treating a number of conditions, including cancer, he says. But the implications of this study for hormone replacement therapy in women is up for debate, a number of researchers say. In menopausal women or those who have had their ovaries surgically removed, lack of estrogen in the brain can cause symptoms such as hot flashes and sleep disturbances. Taking estrogen can relieve those symptoms but can cause side effects in the rest of the body, including an increased risk of certain cancers. The chemical DHED is nearly identical to natural human estrogen, but it has an extra oxygen atom. A specialized protein found in rodents’ brains recognizes the chemical and chops off the oxygen, turning DHED into estrogen. The body’s other organs lack this protein, so they can’t turn DHED into estrogen, says study author Laszlo Prokai, a chemical biologist at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2015.

Neuroscience: The hard science of oxytocin

Helen Shen In April 2011, Robert Froemke and his team were reprogramming the brains of virgin mice with a single hormone injection. Before the treatment, the female mice were largely indifferent to the cries of a distressed baby, and were even known to trample over them. But after an injection of oxytocin, the mice started to respond more like mothers, picking up the mewling pup in their mouths. Froemke, a neuroscientist at New York University's Langone Medical Center in New York City, was monitoring the animals' brains to find out why that happened. At first, the mice showed an irregular smattering of neural impulses when they heard the baby's cries. Then, as the oxytocin kicked in, the signal evolved into a more orderly pattern typical of a maternal brain. The study showed in unusual detail how the hormone changed the behaviour of neurons1. “Oxytocin is helping to transform the brain, to make it respond to those pup calls,” Froemke says. Oxytocin has been of keen interest to neuroscientists since the 1970s, when studies started to show that it could drive maternal behaviour and social attachment in various species. Its involvement in a range of social behaviours2, including monogamy in voles, mother–infant bonding in sheep, and even trust between humans, has earned it a reputation as the 'hug hormone'. “People just concluded it was a bonding molecule, a cuddling hormone, and that's the pervasive view in the popular press,” says Larry Young, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who has been studying the molecule since the 1990s. “What we need to start thinking about is the more fundamental role that oxytocin has in the brain.” © 2015 Nature Publishing Group,

Having children can permanently affect the female brain, studies claim

Steve Connor Having children can permanently affect the brain of women because the surge in female sex hormones during pregnancy can influence the development of key parts of the central nervous system, a series of studies has shown. The findings suggest that childbirth can affect the female brain, but they could also shed light on the controversy over whether hormone replacement therapy in menopausal women affects the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in later life, scientists said. The research looked at two of the oestrogen hormones used to treat the symptoms of menopausal women and found that they could have a complex effect depending on the age of the women and whether or not they had previously given birth. Although the work was mostly carried out on laboratory rats, the scientists said that the findings are more widely applicable to humans because the same hormones and brain cells are involved. The scientists found that the surge in oestrogen hormones during pregnancy, where levels can soar to several hundred times normal levels, can alter “neuroplasticity” or the re-growth of nerve cells in a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is responsible for aspects of memory and spatial awareness. “Our most recent research show that previous motherhood alters cognition and neuroplasticity in response to hormone therapy, demonstrating that motherhood permanently alters the brain,” said Liisa Galea of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Is the Gaze from Those Big Puppy Eyes the Look of Your Doggie's Love?

|By Julie Hecht Unlike porcupines, dogs are a relatively hands-on (actually, paws-on) species, both with one another and with us. YouTube has numerous videos of dogs essentially saying, “Just keep petting me, please. Yes, that’s it…more.” But this relationship is not one-sided. Many studies find that positive interactions between people and dogs can be beneficial for both species. Increases in β-endorphin (beta-endorphin), oxytocin and dopamine—neurochemicals associated with positive feelings and bonding—have been observed in both dogs and people after enjoyable interactions like petting, play and talking. Essentially, interacting with a dog, particularly a known dog, can have some of the same psychophysiological markers as when two emotionally attached people spend time together. But do certain types of interactions have an outsized impact? Dogs are incredibly attentive to human faces and, in some cases, even specific facial expressions. This seemingly routine, benign behavior—your dog turning to gaze on your beautiful face as you do his or hers—could actually hold a very important piece of the puzzle in our relationship with dogs, suggests a study published this week in Science. The new study, by Miho Nagasawa of Azabu University in Japan and colleagues, builds on Nagasawa’s previous work, published in Hormones and Behavior in 2009, that found owners and dogs sharing a long mutual gaze had higher levels of oxytocin in their urine than owners of dogs giving a shorter gaze. (Oxytocin, a humble peptide of nine amino acids that is sometimes called the “cuddle hormone,” has been implicated in social bonding and is instrumental to the cascade of hormonal changes leading up to and following birth.) Nagasawa and her colleagues concluded that their finding was “a manifestation of attachment behavior.” © 2015 Scientific American

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 5: Hormones and the Brain; Chapter 15: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex; Chapter 11: Emotions, Aggression, and Stress
Link ID: 20816 - Posted: 04.18.2015

'Love hormone' turns mothers into moms

By Virginia Morell Like many newborn mammals, baby mice cry to get their mother’s attention. But the mother doesn’t instinctively recognize these calls; she must learn the sounds of her offspring—just as human parents must learn the cries of their infants. Now, a team of researchers has discovered that the hormone oxytocin, which has been tied to trust and maternal bonding, holds the key to how this learning occurs. Only after oxytocin tweaks the brain of a female mouse does she respond with a mother’s concern and attentiveness to crying pups. “It’s an exciting study with implications that … could be helpful to certain disorders, such as autism,” says Larry Young, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta who was not involved in the work. To understand the role oxytocin plays in a mother mouse’s brain, scientists at New York University School of Medicine first investigated how female mice in general respond to the distress calls of baby mice. Pups emit ultrasonic cries when they are separated from the nest, which sometimes happens when a mother carries her babies to a new location. (Moms change nest locations regularly to elude predators.) When a mother hears these cries, she runs to the lost pup, picks it up, and carries it back to her nest. Other scientists have shown that moms respond even to the distress cries of pups that aren’t their own, readily approaching loudspeakers that broadcast the calls. Most virgin female mice, though, couldn’t care less; they seem completely indifferent to the pups’ cries for help. And yet, some virgin females that have either been housed with a mother and her litter or have been injected with oxytocin will retrieve crying infants. © 2015 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Menopausal killer whales are family leaders

By Nicholas Weiler Killer whales wouldn’t get far without their old ladies. A 9-year study of orcas summering off the southern tip of Vancouver Island in the Pacific Northwest finds that menopausal females usually lead their families to find salmon, particularly when the fish are scarce. Older females’ years of foraging experience may help their clans survive in years of famine, an evolutionary benefit that could explain why—like humans—female orcas live for decades past their reproductive prime. “Menopause is a really bizarre trait. Evolutionarily it doesn’t make sense,” says biologist Lauren Brent of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, who led the new study. Most animals keep having babies until they drop, part of the evolutionary drive to spread their genes as widely as possible. Only female humans, pilot whales, and killer whales are known to go through menopause: At a certain age, they stop reproducing, but continue to lead long, productive lives. Like humans, female killer whales stop giving birth by about 40, but can live into their 90s. Anthropologists have proposed a controversial explanation for menopause in humans: that grandmothers contribute to their genetic legacies by helping their children and grandchildren survive and reproduce. In hunter-gatherer and other societies, elders find extra food, babysit, and remember tribal lore about how to live through floods, famines, and other hardships. According to the “grandmother hypothesis,” this contribution is so valuable that it helped spur the evolution of women’s long postreproductive lives. Orcas too depend on their elders: Adult killer whales’ mortality rates skyrocket after their elderly mothers die. But how the menopausal whales might help their children survive was not clear, Brent says. © 2015 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Oxytocin: Two New Reasons For Skepticism

By Neuroskeptic A new study offers two reasons to be cautious about some of the claims made for the role of the hormone oxytocin in human behavior. The paper’s out now in PLoS ONE from researchers James C. Christensen and colleagues, who are based at the US Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio. That the military are interested in oxytocin at all is perhaps a testament to the huge amount of interest that this molecule has attracted in recent years. Oxytocin has been called the “hug hormone”, and is said to be involved in such nice things as love and trust. But according to Christensen et al., quite a lot of previous oxytocin research may be flawed. Their paper is in two parts. Christensen et al. first show that the only accurate way to measure oxytocin levels in blood is by performing plasma extraction before chemical analysis. Using unextracted plasma, they find, leads to seriously distorted measures. The differences between extracted and unextracted plasma estimates of oxytocin have been noted before, but Christensen et al. show directly that unextracted plasma interferes with oxytocin measurement. They found that oxytocin test kits were unable to detect a ‘spike’ of pure oxytocin added to some unextracted plasma samples, whereas the spike was reliably detected when added to an extracted sample. This was true using either the ELISA or RIA method for quantification of oxytocin. With ELISA, unextracted oxytocin measures were also very noisy and unrealistically high:

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 5: Hormones and the Brain
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex
Link ID: 20479 - Posted: 01.14.2015

After injury, estrogen may shield the brain

By Bethany Brookshire WASHINGTON — Estrogen can protect the brain from harmful inflammation following traumatic injury, a new study in zebra finches suggests. Boosting levels of the sex hormone in the brain might help prevent the cell loss that occurs following damage from injuries such as stroke. Estrogen levels quadrupled around the damaged area in both male and female zebra finches after researchers gave them experimental brain injuries, Colin Saldanha and colleagues at American University in Washington, D.C., reported November 17 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. When the scientists prevented finch brains from making estrogen, inflammatory proteins at damaged sites increased. The helpful estrogen didn’t come from gonads. It’s made within the brain by support cells called astrocytes close to the injury. Injury inflames the brain. Initially, this inflammation recruits helpful cells to the damaged area and aids in recovery. But the long-term presence of inflammatory proteins can cause harm, killing off brain cells and reducing functions such as movement and memory. The researchers hope that by understanding how estrogen reduces inflammatory proteins, therapies might boost this natural estrogen production to keep harmful inflammation at bay. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2014.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 5: Hormones and the Brain; Chapter 19: Language and Lateralization
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex; Chapter 15: Language and Lateralization
Link ID: 20341 - Posted: 11.21.2014

Fact or Fiction?: Oxytocin Is the “Love Hormone”

|By Gary Stix A biochemical produced in the brain called oxytocin has entered popular culture in recent years as the “love,” “cuddle” or “bonding” hormone. That’s a lot to choose from. Oxytocin plays a role in producing contractions at childbirth and in helping in lactation, but we’ve known that for more than a century. Experiments in the 1990s showed that it was instrumental in leading prairie voles, known for their monogamous behavior, to pick a lifelong mate. Later studies then demonstrated that the chemical contributes to trust and social interactions in various animals, including humans. After the vole study, interest in the nine–amino acid peptide started to rise. In a TED talk economist Paul Zak called it “the moral molecule” because of its link to trust, empathy and prosperity. The Internet DIY brain-makeover market then took up the meme. Vero Labs of Daytona Beach, Fla., sells “Connekt” oxytocin spray for $79 that purports to “strengthen workplace bonds” and “increase positive self-awareness.” The company has also come out with a his-and-her“Attrakt” spray that mixes oxytocin with pheromones—chemical sex attractants that help mice get it on, but whose role in triggering mating behavior in humans is hotly disputed. (Researchers who study oxytocin warn prospective buyers away from these purchases, saying that long-term use in humans has not been studied.) © 2014 Scientific American

Think Like a Doctor: Weaker and Weaker Solved!

By LISA SANDERS, M.D. On Thursday, we challenged Well readers to take on the case of a 19-year-old man who suddenly collapsed at work after months of weakness and fatigue dotted with episodes of nausea and vomiting. More than 500 of you wrote in with suggested diagnoses. And more than 60 of you nailed it. The cause of this man’s collapse, weakness, nausea and vomiting was… Addisonian crisis because of Addison’s disease Addison’s disease, named after Dr. Thomas Addison, the 19th-century physician who first described the disorder, occurs when the adrenal glands stop producing the fight-or-flight hormones, particularly cortisol and adrenaline and a less well known but equally important hormone called aldosterone that helps the body manage salt. In Addison’s, the immune system mistakenly attacks the adrenal glands as if they were foreign invaders. Why this happens is not well understood, but without these glands and the essential hormones they make, the body cannot respond to biological stress. The symptoms of Addison’s are vague. That’s one reason it’s so hard to diagnosis. Patients complain of weakness and fatigue. They often crave salt. And when confronted with any stress — an infection or an injury — patients with Addison’s may go into adrenal crisis, characterized by nausea and vomiting, low blood pressure and, sometimes, physical collapse. Their blood pressure may drop so low that oxygen-carrying blood cannot reach the extremities, causing skin to turn blue; if blood fails to reach even more essential organs, it can lead to death. © 2014 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 5: Hormones and the Brain
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 8: Hormones and Sex
Link ID: 20037 - Posted: 09.06.2014

FDA: Little evidence to support testosterone drugs

By MATTHEW PERRONE AP Health Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says there is little evidence that testosterone-boosting drugs taken by millions of American men are beneficial, though the agency is also unconvinced by studies suggesting the hormone carries serious risks. The agency posted its review online Wednesday ahead of a public meeting to discuss the benefits and risks of treatments that raise levels of the male hormone. Regulators agreed to convene the September 17 meeting after two federally funded studies found links between testosterone therapy and heart problems in men. The scrutiny comes amid an industry marketing blitz for new pills, patches and formulations that has transformed testosterone a multibillion-dollar market. Advertisements for prescription gels like Fortesta and Androgel promise aging men relief from ‘‘Low-T,’’ a condition they link to low libido, fatigue and weight gain. But FDA reviewers state that ‘‘the need to replace testosterone in these older men remains debatable.’’ While testosterone levels naturally decline after age 40, it’s unclear whether those lower levels actually lead to the signs commonly associated with aging, including decreased energy and loss of muscle. The FDA first approved testosterone injections in the 1950s for men who had been diagnosed with hypogonadism, a form of abnormally low testosterone caused by injury or medical illness. But the recent advertising push is focused on otherwise healthy men who simply have lower-than-normal levels of testosterone.

Hypothesis on evolution of PMS attracts hostility

by Bethany Brookshire Premenstrual syndrome, or PMS, can be a miserable experience. Women report over 200 symptoms in the days before menstruation occurs. The complaints run the gamut from irritable mood to bloating. PMS can be so slight you don’t even notice, or it can be so severe it has its own category — premenstrual dysphoric disorder. But to some, PMS is just a punchline, a joke featured in pop culture from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Saturday Night Live. Michael Gillings, who studies molecular evolution at Macquarie University in Sydney, thinks that PMS could have a purpose. In a perspective piece published August 11 in Evolutionary Adaptations, Gillings proposes that PMS confers an evolutionary advantage, increasing the likelihood that a woman will leave an infertile mate. He hopes that his idea could lead to more research and less stigma about the condition. But while his hypothesis certainly sparked a lot of discussion, whether it is likely, or even necessary, is in doubt. Gillings first began to think about PMS when he found out that premenstrual dysphoric disorder was being added to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. “I started to think that we have a normal distribution of PMS responses, where some people don’t get any symptoms, the majority gets mild symptoms, and some get severe symptoms,” he explains. Including PMDD in DSM-5 made a statement, he says, that “we were going to take one end of this normal curve, the extreme far right end, and we were going to draw a line and say, those people there have a disease we’re going to label in our book. But if 80 percent of women get some kind of premenstrual symptoms, then it’s normal. And I wondered, if it’s so normal, what could be the reason for it?” © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2014.

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