Glands of Inner Secretion - Your Provider of Natural Hormones

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Glands of internal secretion. What can you learn about them from the title? First, they are called glands, since they consist only of special secretory cells and have the appearance of glandular formations. Secondly, the term "internal secretion" suggests that the secretions of these glands do not pass through the outlet ducts. There are no such ways in the glands. They give their substances directly to the lymph or to the blood vessels that cover these glands. Thirdly, the purpose of these formations is secretory activity. The secret( or, in other words, secretions) of these glands is one or the other hormone.

Glands of internal secretion supply the human body with hormones of different nature. Some consist of proteins, others - from the products of their decay, others are derived from such fats as cholesterol in its various forms. However, regardless of the nature of the hormones, they all have a special purpose, which distinguishes them into a separate group of substances.

To the substance released by the cells of an organ, it has been called a hormone, and the organ that produces it has been listed as a "human gland", it should have such properties:

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1. Hormones are very active in physiological processes. This property is manifested in the fact that the slightest change in the direction of increasing or decreasing the amount of a given substance in the body causes a malfunction in its operation. For this reason, it is very dangerous to take hormonal drugs in uncontrolled doses. For each organism this dose should be set individually after a serious examination.

2. Hormones are very selective. Each of them works only with certain bodies and does not interfere with the activities of other systems.

3. By the life of hormones can be compared with butterflies, one-day. They are developed, quickly perform their work, and then destroyed and removed from the body. This must be taken into account when passing the tests. In different periods of the year, month and even the time of the day in the human body will be a different amount of hormones. And some of them are produced only at a certain age or state of the body.

Having studied the properties of secretions of various human organs, scientists have established that only some cells secrete hormones. These cells began to be called secretory( capable of producing hormones), and the organs containing them were separated into a separate system. So the glands of internal secretion entered the science. To date, only a few of them have been well studied, namely the pituitary gland, the sex glands, the adrenal glands, and the thyroid gland.

The structure of the endocrine glands is very difficult to study, as they are all deep in the body, closed by other organs: the skull, kidneys, stomach, etc. In addition, the gland size is very small, which also complicates their study. The main source of information about a particular gland is the hormones that it produces. The activity of hormones is studied through the study of blood and the effect that they have on the entire body.

It is also interesting that the list of endocrine glands is not final for today. Science and medicine do not stand still. New technologies allow better and more detailed study of the structure of tissues and cells of already familiar organs, to reveal all the new functions that they perform.

In recent years, it has become known that some organs in their composition, as well as endocrine glands, have a small amount of secretory cells capable of producing substances that act similar to hormones. For example, it was found that the duodenum produces secretin, which affects the pancreas. Kidneys with their secretions can change blood pressure. The spleen gives a substance that stimulates the bone marrow to produce red corpuscles. It is likely that further study of these cells will significantly expand the list of organs that perform endocrine functions in the human body.