Word: gland
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...never a big eater of meals, but I was an expert M&M hider. I took M&M's, opened the bag, put them in my jacket pockets and sneaked them at meetings. Now, everybody knows the way carbohydrates affect the insulin levels, which shifts the adrenal gland and triggers the temper. If somebody pulls out chocolate chip cookies now at a marketing meeting, my staff will take them right off the table for safety reasons...
Endocrinologists have known for years that oxytocin, released by the pituitary gland, ovaries and testes, helps trigger childbirth contractions, milk production during nursing and the pelvic shudders women experience during orgasm (and possibly the contractions during male orgasm as well). The hormone is believed to play a vital role in mother-child bonding and may do the same for new fathers: oxytocin surges when a new dad holds his bundle of joy. Some researchers also think of oxytocin as a cuddle chemical. Preliminary studies by psychiatrist Kathleen Light at the University of North Carolina have found that oxytocin levels rise...
...with any drug, there are risks. Growth hormone is a natural substance produced by the pituitary gland, but taking more than your body makes on its own can cause problems. Athletes and body builders who buy HGH on the Internet to increase muscle mass have developed all sorts of strange abnormalities, from misshapen hands and faces to enlarged livers, kidneys and hearts. Nobody knows what the long-term effects on children might be, but, according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, they could include metabolic changes, kidney problems and a higher risk of cancer. The committee also warns that...
When the brain detects a threat, a number of structures, including the hypothalamus, amygdala and pituitary gland, go on alert: they exchange information with each other and then send signaling hormones and nerve impulses to the rest of the body to prepare for fight or flight...
Potassium-iodide pills are becoming to dirty bombs what Cipro was to anthrax. Potassium iodide can help prevent thyroid cancer following exposure to a nuclear explosion, by saturating the gland with benign iodine, preventing the thyroid from soaking up radioactive iodine, I-131, released by the blast. But that won't help in the case of a dirty bomb, as a homemade explosive is unlikely to contain radioactive iodine. The half-life of the I-131 isotope is only eight days, making it a poor choice for a weapon that counts on radioactivity for its effectiveness. If a terrorist obtained...