Hormone, Diabetes and Metabolism Terms
Hormones, endocrine glands, diabetes, blood glucose, and metabolic health. Browse definitions and meanings below.
What is endocrinology?
Endocrinology is the study of hormones, the glands that release them, and what happens when the balance shifts. A hormone is a chemical messenger released into the blood in one place to act somewhere else, which is what separates this system from the nervous system: slower, but reaching everywhere at once.
Much of the vocabulary arrives in matched pairs built on hyper- and hypo-, meaning too much and too little of the same thing. Hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism describe opposite states of one gland; hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia opposite states of one measurement.
Terms in this topic
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Changes arrive so slowly that old photographs, a ring that no longer fits or a rising shoe size often reveal them first.
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ACTH is a pituitary hormone that signals the adrenal glands to release cortisol, rising during stress and following a natural daily rhythm.
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Actos is the brand name for pioglitazone, an oral medication that improves the body's response to insulin in type 2 diabetes.
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Cells hold only a tiny standing amount and recycle it endlessly, so adenosine triphosphate works as a currency rather than as a store of energy.
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Cancer starting in the adrenal glands is rare, while cancer found in them is not, because they attract spread from elsewhere.
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The outer rind of the gland sitting on each kidney, built in three layers that turn cholesterol into three different classes of hormone.
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The adrenal glands are small hormone producing organs sitting atop each kidney that regulate stress response, blood pressure, and metabolism.
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The inner part of the adrenal gland (a small organ on top of each kidney).
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Removal of one or both of the small glands capping the kidneys, whose hormones are potent enough that losing both changes life permanently.
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Adrenaline is a hormone and neurotransmitter released during stress that rapidly raises heart rate, blood pressure, and alertness.
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Having to do with or made by the outer layer of the adrenal gland, which produces steroid hormones.
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A rare cancer that forms in the outer layer of tissue of the adrenal gland (a small organ on top of each kidney that makes steroid hormones, adrenaline, and noradrenaline to control heart rate…
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A rare cancer of the adrenal gland's outer layer that often announces itself through the hormones it releases unchecked.
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A hormone made in the pituitary gland.
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A chemical process in which oxygen is used to make energy from carbohydrates (sugars).
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Aldosterone is a hormone from the adrenal gland that regulates blood pressure by controlling how the kidneys retain sodium and release potassium.
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Starting it can set off an attack, because a shifting uric acid level disturbs crystals already sitting in a joint.
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A rare, aggressive type of thyroid cancer in which the malignant (cancer) cells look very different from normal thyroid cells.
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A rare type of ovarian tumor in which the tumor cells secrete a male sex hormone.
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Androgens are steroid hormones, testosterone chief among them, that drive male sexual development and also influence muscle and bone in both sexes.