A new book excerpt highlights how hormones shape daily life and health.
Dr. Saira Hameed, an endocrinologist at a London teaching hospital, describes her work with patients whose hormone systems have gone awry. She notes that conditions like rapid weight gain, infertility, and anxiety often trace back to these chemical signals. Hameed recounts the history of hormone discovery, including the 1902 finding by Ernest Starling and William Bayliss that led to the term from the Greek word for excite or arouse. She emphasizes listening to patient stories over high-tech procedures in her non-craft specialty. The excerpt comes from her book Signals: The Hidden Power and Secret Language of Hormones, published by Harper.