Dr. Sarrel describes male and female sex hormones.
Dr. Sarrel:
It’s a very good place for us to begin because I want to clear the air about sex hormones in women as well as in men, and the issue is that there are hormones, testosterone being one of a family of hormones called androgens, and there are other hormones, estrogens that we think of as the sex hormones, mainly because they are made by the sex glands, by the ovaries in women, by the testicles in men.
And they are important in sexual function, but it’s important also to know that by definition, a hormone is a substance that is made by a gland, and it doesn’t matter if it’s sex hormones or thyroid hormone or cortisone or insulin made by a gland and dumped directly into the bloodstream.
And hormones go wherever the blood goes, which means that if we are going to talk about sex hormones like testosterone and the androgens, we have to understand that these are hormones that are going to circulate in the body and enter cells throughout the body, and one of the things we will talk about is all the different actions that those hormones have in those cells that affect the human beings.
And we will focus on women and the androgens in women, all the actions that those hormones have that affect her ability to function and to be herself. So that’s our agenda.
About Dr. Sarrel, M.D.:
Philip M. Sarrel, M.D., completed his medical education at New York University School of Medicine, his internship at the Mount Sinai Hospital, and his residency at Yale New Haven Hospital. In addition to his many years on the faculty of the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, Dr. Sarrel has also been a Faculty Scholar in the department of psychiatry at Oxford University, Visiting Senior Lecturer at King’s College Hospital Medical School at the University of London, Visiting Professor in Cardiac Medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute in London, and Visiting Professor in the Department of Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. He is currently Emeritus Professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and psychiatry at Yale University.