What Are Sex Hormones?

Sex hormone sexhormone (chemical nature is lipid) refers to steroid hormones synthesized by the gonads of the animal body, as well as tissues such as the placenta and the adrenal cortex reticulum, which promote the maturation of the sexual organs, the development of parasexual characteristics and maintain sexual function. The ovaries of female animals mainly secrete two sex hormones-estrogen and progesterone, and the testes of male animals mainly secrete testosterone androgen. ^[1]

Although the physiological effects of hormones are very complex, they can be summarized into five aspects:

First, by regulating protein, sugar and fat, etc.

As early as the 2nd century BC, the Chinese were able to separate sex hormones and pituitary hormones from human urine and apply them to clinical treatment, which is far ahead of modern biochemistry. The Chinese people traditionally call the obtained hormonal crystals "autumn stones", because this crystal material is quite similar to the hoarfrost in autumn. Prior to 125 BC, Liu An, the king of Huainan, first used the name "autumn stone" to describe this class of hormones "white color and solid properties." Among the early scientists in ancient China, King Huainan was the most advanced one. He had a school of Taoist masters and philosophers making elixir, and was keen to experiment with various physical processes.

In 25 BC, Taoist experiments and research were opposed by Gu Yun, a high-ranking official at the time, and his remarks against alchemy and alchemy were contained in the true history of the time. He made the following statement: "Taoists say that by melting cinnabar, they can turn it into gold, and that they can make it into a hard, dark, muddy (that is, concentrated) urine, White ice-like (crystalline) matter. "The great Tang poet Bai Juyi (772-846) once wrote a poem titled" Thinking of the Old ". It talked about his friend, another great poet Yuan Shen (word micro, 779-831): Yuan Shen refined the medicine "Qiu Shi" (and took it in person), and died suddenly at a young age.

Centuries later, the exact record of the "autumn" drug manufacturing method began to appear in the literature. As far as we know, the earliest information on this method in China is published in the book "Experience". The book was written by Zhang Chengdao and was printed in l025 AD. From l025 AD to 1833 AD, 39 different books have recorded the information about obtaining sex hormones and pituitary hormones from urine. There are no less than 10 specific extraction methods. These hormones are produced on a large scale, each batch requiring up to several hundred liters of human urine, and eventually thousands of doses of medicine are made available for medical use.

Therefore, it is very clear that in the field of obtaining sex hormones from urine, the Chinese have led the world for about 2,200 years. The earliest published method for the production of these hormones was AD 1025. The article read: "Take 682 liters of men's urine and install a large steamer in the empty room. Put a deep tile 9B on the pot and use pulp and lime. Seal the edges. After drying, there will be no steam coming out. Pour 70 to 80% of the urine into the pot, cook under the stove with high fire, and send someone to wait for it. If the rising foam is about to overflow, add a small amount of cold urine Liquid, do not allow urine to overflow. The dry residue is 'white among people'. Take some powder and put it in a good crock, sealed as before, and put it in the furnace with charcoal to make it sublime. You can get 57-85 grams (sublimation). Grind into powder and mix with jujube meat to make nine doses of the size of mung beans. Take five to seventy-nine each time, and take warm or field before breakfast. "Urine The initial simple evaporation step of the liquid is similar to the large-scale production method of evaporation of seawater to produce salt. The solid matter remaining after the urine evaporates needs to be further refined in order to remove urea, salts, etc. from it. Later, the Chinese sublimated it, a technique that Taoists are very familiar with. The simplest sublimation measure is to place the pot on the fire, and the contents of the pot will fall on the red hot charcoal or charcoal ash. As it sublimes, a layer of sublimation material condenses on the underside of the lid of the pot. . The improved sublimation operation method is to place a tiltable lid on the tank, (at the end of sublimation), the top cover can be removed, and then the sublimation can be brushed off with feathers. Sublimation is a delicate way of making in the various described urine refining processes. It is very clear that only 57-85 grams of precious hormone sublimation crystals can be extracted from 682 liters of urine. The Chinese have discovered by accident that steroid hormones are stable at temperatures below their melting point. When the temperature changes between 130 and 210 C, they can be effectively sublimated. Europeans did not observe it until this century. To this phenomenon. When the temperature reaches 260 ° C, the steroid hormones still do not decompose, and some of these steroid hormones can not effectively sublimate until 300 c. Of course, not all Chinese extraction methods include the sublimation step. But as long as it includes sublimation operation, in its entire process. The temperature is strictly controlled between 120 and 300 ° C. Today, modern scientists have discovered that this is the most suitable temperature range. In this way, hormone substances can be separated from a large amount of extracorporeal substances (urine) and have a considerable purity. Of course, there will be a small amount of impurities in the obtained solid, including cyanuric acid, but this has no obvious effect. In the preparation, it is just a household substance. Small amounts of other substances, such as grin, methyl barking, volatile fatty acids, and non-steroidal phenols, are also irrelevant because they are non-toxic. But according to our modern standards, the crystals made by the Chinese in ancient times were not pure enough. However, there is no doubt that they are concentrated hormone substances with obvious biological activity and high efficacy. The sublimation technique of ancient China was decisive in the extraction of most (though not all) of the hormone 66 from urine.

How do Chinese people use these sex hormones? They are mainly used to treat various diseases related to reproductive organs, including hypogonadism, impotence, and sexual reversal (that is, men can spontaneously transform into women, or vice versa. This It is a phenomenon that ancient Chinese people are already familiar with), Mingyang androgyny, superfine, dysmenorrhea, leucorrhea, low sexual function and so on. Androgens can even stimulate the growth of Peng Xu (because the Chinese know that men grow beards because of You Fu Jiu's, and once castrated, the beards stop growing). As for oral estrogen. It is well known that it will be inactivated in the human liver. Any Chinese seems to increase the dose, so that there will be some loss, and the rest can still produce a therapeutic effect. Perhaps the pituitary hormones are more important than retinocin because they can stimulate patients to produce more state hormones. Of course, there are still some difficult questions about the extraction of sex hormones in ancient Chinese. For example, no one has tried to repeat the detailed preparation process described in the literature to confirm whether the finished product can indeed be obtained from it. It is very clear that this issue needs further experiments and discussions in the future. However, there is no doubt that the Chinese have truly pioneered endocrinology, and they are well deserved of their great achievements!

After 1200, western sex hormones began to develop based on Chinese research records:

In 1853, Barnard of France studied the gastric juices of various animals and discovered that the liver has many incredible functions. Bernard believes that it contains a substance to perform this function. But he didn't research this substance, in fact it was hormones.

In 1880, Ostwald of Germany proposed a large amount of iodine-containing substances from the thyroid, and confirmed that this is the substance that regulates thyroid function. It was later discovered that this was also a hormone.

In 1889, Barnard's student Squad discovered the function of another hormone. He believes that the testicles of animals must contain substances that are active in body function, but they have not been found.

In 1901, a Japanese who was engaged in research in the United States, Gao Fengji, extracted the substance that regulates blood pressure from the cow's paranephrine and made it into a crystal, called adrenaline. This is the first hormone crystal extracted in the world.

In 1902, British physiologists Starling and Bellis after a long-term observation and research found that when food enters the small intestine, because the food rubs on the intestinal wall, the small intestine The pancreas secretes pancreatic juice as soon as it is received. They extracted the substance and injected it into the blood of mammals. They found that pancreatic juice was secreted immediately even if the animal did not eat, so they named the substance "pancreatic stimulating fluid." Later, Starling and Bellis gave such a small number of these but had physiological effects [3].