There is a complex, bidirectional interdependence between sex steroid hormones and epilepsy; hormones affect seizures, while seizures affect hormones thereby disturbing reproductive endocrine function. Both female and male sex steroid hormones influence brain excitability. For the female sex steroid hormones, progesterone and its metabolites are anticonvulsant, while estrogens are mainly procon...

An Essential Hormone Testosterone, estrogen, cortisol, DHEA, and pregnenolone are members of a family of natural hormones that are essential for human survival. All of these hormones contain four carbon-ring structures attached to each other, and appear very similar.1Small differences in structure, however, produce dramatic changes in function. Testosterone, the “male” hormone, is only slightly...

The prostate is not a gland exclusive to the male reproductive system since it is also found in females of several mammals, including humans and rodents. In males, prostatic morphogenesis is an event controlled by androgens, which act indirectly via paracrine factors secreted by the mesenchyme. In females, prostatic embryological development occurs in an environment without steroid hormones, bu...

There is a sex difference in hypertensive renal injury, with men experiencing greater severity and a more rapid progression of renal disease than women; however, the molecular mechanisms protecting against renal injury in women are unknown. The goal of this study was to determine whether sex hormones modulate blood pressure and the progression of albuminuria during the developmental phase of hy...