Hormones cause obesity?! You are wrongly blaming it!

When a doctor tells you that you need to take a certain hormone to cure an illness, what is your first reaction? Is it "It's over, I will definitely get fat if I take hormones"?

In fact, this is a misunderstanding of hormones for many people. They are afraid of hormones and subconsciously resist all hormone drugs. But in fact, hormones are not that scary. They are just a kind of chemical information substance, and they have a great impact on our health.

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Hormones are not equal to "hormones"

The original meaning of hormone is "to rise up and move". From the name, we can see that its function is similar to that of a catalyst in chemical experiments. Its main function is to promote the body's metabolism and allow the various organs in the body to work normally. There are hundreds of hormones in the human body, and each hormone "has its own function" to regulate the body's growth, metabolism, development, reproduction and other physiological activities. It can be said that our lives are inseparable from it. Hormones are a large family, among which the well-known ones are growth hormone, thyroid hormone, adrenaline, insulin, glucocorticoids, estrogen, progesterone and androgen.

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Hormones are highly effective and active substances that are very important to the human body. They must be kept at an appropriate level in the human body. Too much or too little of any hormone may cause various diseases. For example, growth hormone can promote bone and body growth, promote protein synthesis, affect fat and mineral metabolism, and play an important role in human growth and development. Excessive secretion of growth hormone in childhood can cause gigantism, and excessive secretion in adulthood can cause acromegaly, but lack of growth hormone can lead to developmental delay, and in severe cases, dwarfism.

If the secretion of a certain hormone is abnormal, it is necessary to promote it to achieve balance through oral medication. This supplement is often calculated according to physiological doses, with the purpose of regulating the physiological balance of the human body. For example, growth hormone is used for developmental delay, thyroxine is used for hypothyroidism, insulin is used for diabetes, and estrogen and progesterone are used for menopausal symptoms and hyperandrogenemia, which will not cause obesity.

It can be said that most hormones have nothing to do with being fat or thin, so don’t let them take the blame anymore!

Two "hormone friends" who were wronged

Why is it said that hormones make people fat? This has to start with glucocorticoids.

Glucocorticoids

Glucocorticoids are the most important regulatory hormones of the human body's stress response and are currently the most widely used and effective anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressant in clinical practice. They have multiple effects such as anti-inflammatory, anti-toxic, anti-allergic, anti-shock, and non-specific immune suppression. They can prevent and stop the occurrence of immune inflammatory reactions and pathological immune reactions, and are effective against almost any type of allergic diseases.

In emergency or critical situations, glucocorticoids are often used as the first choice in clinical practice. During the SARS epidemic in 2003, the use of glucocorticoids saved the lives of many patients. However, long-term use of glucocorticoids does produce many adverse reactions, one of which is weight gain. It can also cause endocrine and metabolic disorders, hypokalemia, hypertension, diabetes, hirsutism, acne, osteoporosis, infection, and neuropsychiatric disorders.

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Long-term and large-scale use of glucocorticoids will exacerbate the decomposition of subcutaneous fat in the limbs, but the decomposed fat will not disappear immediately, but will be distributed on the face, chest, back and buttocks, causing the patient to often look hunchbacked and have a "moon face". Not only that, glucocorticoids can also affect the digestive function of the stomach, causing people to eat more, leading to weight gain.

Generally speaking, taking a small amount of glucocorticoids for a short period of time will not cause the above-mentioned metabolic abnormalities. Moreover, even if obesity occurs, patients can usually return to normal slowly after stopping the medication, so there is no need to worry too much.

Contraceptive pills

Many women have always worried that the hormones contained in oral contraceptives will cause weight gain. Is this really the case?

The combined short-acting oral contraceptive pill commonly used by women is made of synthetic estrogen and progesterone . Its contraceptive effect is the highest among all contraceptive methods. As long as the medication is strictly used, it has a contraceptive success rate of nearly 100%. Long-term clinical practice and observational studies have found that combined short-acting oral contraceptive pills have many additional health benefits while being highly effective in contraception, including regular menstruation, relief of dysmenorrhea, improvement of acne, improvement of premenstrual syndrome, improvement of skin, anti-androgen performance, and reduction of the risk of endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer .

The contraceptive principle of combined short-acting oral contraceptives is mainly to inhibit ovulation. Oral estrogen and progesterone act on the hypothalamus through negative feedback, inhibiting the secretion of gonadotropin-releasing hormone in the hypothalamus, reducing the secretion of pituitary gonadotropin, and then reducing the amount of follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone in the blood, inhibiting the growth of follicles, thereby inhibiting ovulation of the ovaries and making it impossible for the human body to conceive. At the same time, the progesterone in combined short-acting oral contraceptives will also inhibit the normal growth of the endometrium, causing the cervical mucus to thicken, the endometrium to thin, and the endometrium to be difficult for the fertilized egg to implant. In principle, neither estrogen nor progesterone will make people fat.

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Researchers in the United States have also conducted research on this. They compared women who took birth control pills for 6 months with women who did not take birth control pills and found that there was no significant difference in weight gain and loss between the two groups.

The proportion of water in their bodies was stable, and the distribution of fat did not change significantly. The conclusion of this study shows that oral contraceptives do not cause women to gain weight or redistribute fat.

In fact, since contraceptives generally have anti-androgenic effects, although there may be some symptoms of water and sodium retention in the short term, with long-term use, most of them have a certain weight loss effect due to the suppression of androgens.

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There are also "obesity resisters" among hormones

As women enter menopause, their ovarian function gradually declines until it fails, and the estrogen level in the body drops precipitously, leading to a series of dysfunctions in multiple organs in the body, and lipid metabolism becomes abnormal. Do you have this experience? Compared with women of childbearing age, menopausal women are more likely to gain weight. This is a very obvious feature. It can be seen that the root cause of postmenopausal women's obesity is estrogen deficiency and the resulting sarcopenia and redistribution of body fat.

Adhering to the principle of "supplementing what is lacking", if you want to avoid obesity in middle-aged and elderly people and want to have a quality life, menopausal women can take menopausal hormone therapy in time. At the same time, pay attention to diet control and exercise management in daily life, so as to truly control weight gain. Under the guidance of a doctor, choosing the appropriate treatment method and doing a good job of comprehensive management can effectively improve the quality of life of menopausal women.

Overview

Hormones are not scary! There are more than 200 hormones in the human body. Although they cannot be seen or touched, they are distributed in various parts of the body and stick to different positions. It is precisely because of their independent and coordinated efforts that humans have a healthy body.

Author: Hao Yanfang Peking Union Medical College Hospital

Reviewer: Yu Qi, Professor of Peking Union Medical College Hospital

Source: Science Popularization Department of Chinese Medical Association

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