Show OMN How Your body’s SECRET SYSTEM WORKS EARL UBELL BY actim— and (rawing: Scatty Floyd 12 mw sett bomoM for aoraal grawth through madchN paoff Im wmis around Us wiiaL HaaltlQr WALK DOWN THE ll I ISI YOU ferocious street a If large 'U 1 dog suddenly jumps from behind a bush and directly in your path Your heart begins thumping wildly Your blood pressure peaks Your body mobilizes its energy resources You are ready to stand firm and do battle or to fleo— ready for fight or flight Your body contains a marvelous system of glands and nerves that quickly organizes your heart lungs liver kidneys blood vessels and bowels causing than to work at top efficiency in an emergency And when the threat ends that same glandular system calms everyI thing down Of course your brain acts first Through your senses generally your eyes the brain recognizes the dog as a threat sizes up the danger and then releases chemicals to trigger the complex web of glands posted throughout your body Tile glands pour out more chemicals— messengers that start the other organs working at top speed These chemical messengers are called hormones (from the Greek hormon meaning to stimulate) Up until IS years ago scientists had found only about 20 hormones now they believe that more than 200 hormones course through our veins and arteries “In the last 10 years we have had an explosion in our knowledge of hormones" says Dr Charles Hollander director of endocrinology (the study of glands) at New York University Medical Center "Through endocrinology we have new understanding of cancer diabetes heart disease depression and a host of other diseases" hormone network The takes care of just one of your needs — the survival response to danger Your glands also release hormones to: regulate your sexual development (ovaries and testes) influence your blood pressure and heart rate (adrenals) adjust your growth (pituitary) fight-or-flig- ht control energy use (thyroid) govern how' your cells bum sugar (pancreas) ll In 1983 Ruby of Torrance Calif was bom without a thyroid gland Had she come into the world four years earlier the lack of thyroid hormones would have irrevocably damaged her brain But she was lucky In 1980 California implemented a law requiring that every newborn get a thyHunt-Russe- roid test Today most states have such a law ltMIT When Ruby was 2 days old doctors took a sample of her blood No thyroid fUp hormone showed in the sample of the base of her throat the site of the thyroid revealed no thyroid gland In this country one baby in 4000 is bom with a defective thyroid or is lacking one Doctors prescribed that thyroxin be given to Ruby in her milk She will take the hormone in pill form for the rest of her life "She is totally normal physically and in intelligence" says Lyn ll schoolteacher mother a Ruby's Ruby today is a striking blond child with giant brown eyes and a California tan Without thyroid hormone she would have become a mentally retarded dwarf Scientists also have learned that glands strongly influence both your physical life and your moods and thoughts Too much or too little hormone secretion by glands can cause anxiety (nonstop fear or depression) and uncontrollable sadness and moroseness or impair the ability to think clearly More news: Other organs in addition to your glands make important aIprt X-ra- ys Hunt-Russe- hormones Your kidneys make erythropoietin a substance that spurs the growth of red blood cells Scientists have made this hormone artificially to help produce blood in people without kidneys Your heart pours out atrial natriuretic factor a hormone that controls blood pressure Some doctors believe this hormone may be the most powerful medicine yet discovered for high blood pressure Your stomach secretes cholecys-tokini- n which tells your brain that you have had enough to eat If scientists can find ways of making this substance in quantity they may have the drug that will end the need for dieting forever The new knowledge about hormones has given doctors powerful new treatments for ailments that had resisted cure Among them are: synthetic growth hormone to make dwarfs grow to near normal height tests to show if depression has a glandular cause hormone techniques to treat infertility and hormone treatments for menopause symptoms They also have found inhibin a hormone that could be a male contraceptive Inhibin is made by the testes and ovaries But its commercial production for general use could be years off At the Salk Institute in La Jolla Calif PAGE continued 22 SEnEMBER 20 19S7 PWUK NMAZWE |