• Question: Why do you(all people not you) have hormones and you only feel them? when you are a teenager?

    Asked by anon-214205 to Helen, Farah, Dave, Cheryl, Bastian, Alun on 15 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Helen Faulkner

      Helen Faulkner answered on 15 Jun 2019:

      I’m not a biologist so I can only give a general answer to this.
      Hormones are chemical messengers that control an awful lot of our bodily functions e.g. ADH controls fluid retention in the kidneys which helps to balance out fluid and nutrient levels in the blood.
      Hormones, or at least their side effects, can feel particularly bad when you are a teenager because you get a sudden surge of them as they make physical and mental changes to your body ready for adulthood. I wish I could offer some helpful advise but everyone is different and unfortunately its something we all have to go through, the feelings don’t always go away after your teens either I’m sorry to say (mine still kick my butt sometimes) but you will learn how to deal with them better as you get older and you will learn to recognise tell tale signs that a hormone surge is coming so that you can prepare for it.

    • Photo: Cheryl Williams

      Cheryl Williams answered on 16 Jun 2019:

      Like Helen has already explained, hormones are chemical messengers in the body and there are loads of them. They all do different jobs. The ones responsible for changes in the human body during puberty are raised at higher levels than normal. Some people are affected by this more than others.

    • Photo: Dave Underhill

      Dave Underhill answered on 17 Jun 2019:

      Hormones are absolutely vital, they control the functions of the body (temperature, sleep, hunger, your immune system, blood sugar etc etc etc). There are alot of hormonal changes happening while you are a teenager, in men testosterone causes puberty, increases bone density, triggers facial hair growth, and causes muscle mass growth and strength, in women estrogen causes puberty, prepares the body and uterus for pregnancy, and regulates the menstrual cycle. These are largely about reproduction which is the entire point of life. However, hormones change as you grow, particularly in women. At the end of their reproductive life women go through something called the menopause, this removes them from the breeding population so they can assist in raising their grandchildren, a vital part of survival in a hunter gatherer society(remember we have only been farming as a species for about 12 thousand years and with our ancestors have spent millions of years evolving the delicate balance of hormones necessary to survive)

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