Biological and Chemical Substance Terms

The chemical building block of fats, and the reason one fat behaves so differently from another.

A pigment family coloring much of the plant world, and the clearest example of test tube antioxidant power failing to transfer into a body.

A radioactive substance being studied as an imaging agent in head and neck cancers and other types of cancer.

A hormone made in the pituitary gland.

A pituitary hormone that tells the ovaries to ripen an egg and the testicles to keep making sperm.

A sugar-tipped fat in the outer face of cell membranes, densest in the brain, working as an identity tag and a docking point.

A hormone released from special cells in the lining of the stomach after eating.

Insulin takes the attention, but the opposing hormone is what keeps blood sugar from falling too far between meals and overnight.

A glucocorticoid is a steroid hormone that regulates metabolism and suppresses inflammation, produced naturally by the body or manufactured as medication.

The brain depends on it almost exclusively and stores none, which is why the body defends the blood level so aggressively.

One molecule doing two unrelated jobs: a disposal tag in the liver and a structural thread in cartilage and joint fluid.

A protein building block that doubles as the brain's main go signal, and as the flavor behind monosodium glutamate.

Its working end is a single sulfur atom, which is what lets the molecule absorb damage and then be restored for reuse.

Glycolic acid is a small alpha hydroxy acid derived from plant sugars that exfoliates skin in cosmetic and dermatologic products.

A signal that tells the marrow to produce the cells that fight infection, and that doubles as an alarm molecule in inflamed tissue.

Timing is everything with this hormone: released in pulses it switches the pituitary on, delivered steadily it switches the same gland off.

A hormone made by the hypothalamus (part of the brain).

A hormone made in the laboratory that has the same effect as the gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) produced naturally by the body.

The body's own instruction to the bone marrow to step up production of the white cells that handle bacteria.

Cells do not decide alone when to multiply; these protein messages from neighboring tissue grant or withhold the permission.