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Dr. Sarrel explains how a woman's body produces sex hormones.
Dr. Sarrel:
Well, first of course is recognizing that testosterone is made from cholesterol. Cholesterol is an absolutely essential ingredient. It’s the starting point for most hormones. So for all the estrogens, for all the androgens, for thyroid hormone, for cortisone, you have to have cholesterol in your diet in order to make hormones.
Half of all the androgens that are made in a woman’s body are made in her ovaries, and you are right when you say they are made every day. They are being made by cells in her ovaries 365 days a year. The other half is made in her adrenal glands and also produced as a byproduct of cholesterol metabolism in other cells of the body like fat cells.
So we have three major sources for the androgens. Before I go any further, let me say testosterone is the one that’s most famous. It’s the one everyone hears about. There are preparations of testosterone that a woman can be given or a man can be given if there’s a deficiency of testosterone, but it’s one of five.
And of the five, probably the only other one to become familiar with is one called DHEA. It’s a long, complicated molecular name, but let’s just remember the initials–DHEA--because that’s a very important androgen as well. So we are going to talk about testosterone and the effects of deficiency and how it can be replaced, but we will also say something about DHEA.
The other thing that I think is very important to keep in mind is you asked about androgens. Aren’t those the male hormones, and estrogens, the female hormones, but in fact the way the body works is you start with cholesterol. The woman starts all through her life cycle, so starting from the time she is a teenager and well into her 50s and early 60s. The levels don’t really drop out until she is in her mid-60s.
Start with cholesterol, and in those ovaries and the adrenal gland and in the fatty tissue, make it into testosterone and other androgens, and then the androgens are the starting point for making the estrogens. So in fact, if a woman didn’t have testosterone, she couldn’t have estradiol, the most famous of the estrogens, because the body has the enzymes that take that testosterone, and a certain part of it is converted into estradiol.
So they are very important to know, become knowledgeable about. If a woman wants to know herself, know what works in her body, she would learn about different hormones like thyroid hormone or insulin or cortisone, and she should learn about estradiol, and she should learn about testosterone.
About Dr. Sarrel, M.D.:
Philip M. Sarrel, M.D., completed his medical education at New York University School of Medicine, his internship at the Mount Sinai Hospital, and his residency at Yale New Haven Hospital. In addition to his many years on the faculty of the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, Dr. Sarrel has also been a Faculty Scholar in the department of psychiatry at Oxford University, Visiting Senior Lecturer at King’s College Hospital Medical School at the University of London, Visiting Professor in Cardiac Medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute in London, and Visiting Professor in the Department of Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. He is currently Emeritus Professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and psychiatry at Yale University.