Endocrinology, Obesity and Diabetes

Because sex hormones are responsible for many of the physical differences between men and women, it seems obvious to make a correlation between endocrino. Because sex hormones are responsible for many of the physical differences between men and women, it seems obvious to make a correlation between endocrinology and sex differences. But sex hormones affect all aspects of the body, not just those related to reproduction. Studies have indicated that sex hormones affect everything from responsiveness to stress, cardiorenal function, susceptibility to immune system disorders and infections and brain development.

Another intriguing example of sex differences in endocrinology occurs in diabetes, which is a condition caused by the body’s inability to process sugar due to an inability to produce or process the peptide hormone insulin. In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas is not able to make enough insulin to process sugar, while type 2 diabetes is caused when the body becomes resistant to the insulin that is being produced by the pancreas. Recent studies have identified a link between estrogen levels and diabetes, with diabetic women having lower estrogen levels than their non-diabetic counterparts. This may be part of the reason why many diabetic women experience reproductive problems, including irregular periods, difficulty conceiving and early-onset of menopause. Scientists have also begun to speculate that these lower estrogen levels may explain why women with diabetes are just as likely as men to develop kidney and cardiovascular conditions related to the disease, despite the fact that women as a whole are generally better protected against these ailments than men.

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