Summary
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss some of the chemical signals coursing through our bodies throughout our lives, produced in separate areas and spreading via the bloodstream. We call these 'hormones' and we produce more than 80 of them of which the best known are arguably oestrogen, testosterone, adrenalin, insulin and cortisol. On the whole hormones operate without us being immediately conscious of them as their goal is homeostasis, maintaining the levels of everything in the body as required without us having to think about them first. Their actions are vital for our health and wellbeing and influence many different aspects of the way our bodies work.
With
Sadaf Farooqi Professor of Metabolism and Medicine at the University of Cambridge
Rebecca Reynolds Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Edinburgh
And
Andrew Bicknell Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading
Produced by Victoria Brignell
Reading list:
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (first published 1962; Penguin Classics, 2000)
Stephen Nussey and Saffron Whitehead, Endocrinology: An Integrated Approach (BIOS Scientific Publishers; 2001)
Aylinr Y. Yilmaz, Comprehensive Introduction to Endocrinology for Novices (Independently published, 2023)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds. |
| 0:02.0 | Hello everyone, it's Michelle Vassage, and welcome to my podcast Rule Breakers. |
| 0:06.0 | But you sit down and be bright. |
| 0:08.0 | Celebrating women's voices. |
| 0:10.0 | You're very welcome to now you're asking with me, Marion Keys Keys and me Tara Flynn. |
| 0:14.8 | This is juicy. No limits, no limits. |
| 0:17.2 | Celebrating women. |
| 0:18.8 | Where to be a woman is the podcast celebrating the best of women's well-being. We're on a quest to find out |
| 0:24.4 | where in the world women are living their best lives. Celebrate yourself. |
| 0:28.8 | Lesson on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.0 | BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:36.0 | This is in our time from BBC Radio 4 and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can |
| 0:41.8 | find on BBC Sounds and on our website. |
| 0:44.8 | If you scroll down the page for this edition, you find a reading list to go with it. |
| 0:48.9 | I hope you enjoy the program. |
| 0:51.2 | Hello, at any moment of the day throughout our lives our bodies are producing chemical |
| 0:56.3 | signals that are sent to other parts of the body we call these chemicals hormones |
| 1:00.8 | and we produce more than 80 of them, of which the best known are arguably |
| 1:05.2 | estrogen, testosterone, adrenaline, insulin and cortisol. On the whole we don't notice |
| 1:11.6 | hormones as their goal is homeostasis, keeping the levels of everything in the body as they are meant to be. |
| 1:18.0 | But their actions are vital for our health and well-being and influence many different aspects of the way our bodies work. |
| 1:24.6 | With me to discuss hormones are Andrew Bicknell, Associate Professor in the School of Biological |
... |
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