Born Smart

Say the word estrogen or testosterone and everyone thinks you’re about to discuss something below the belt. In fact the last thing you would consider is a discussion about the brain.

Bruce S. McEwen from Rockefeller University says, “Medicine is clueless as to how males and females really differ from one another …they tend to think it always works the same way in both sexes. That can be dangerous.”

In his article “The end of sex as we once knew it” published in the Journal Physiology and Behavior in December 2008, McEwen writes about differences between the sexes and also the role hormones play in the brain. McEwen and his colleagues have identified receptors for hormones like estrogen and others in the brain. The hormone reacts indirectly on genes and now raises the question on how this interaction influences the development and function of the human brain.

This is a very important breakthrough, as for a long time since the 1960’s scientists believed that hormones do not enter the brain and since then this viewpoint on hormones have been slow to progress past that of the necessity for reproduction.

It is important that we consider what this means for a pregnant women and her baby. It is well known that hormones play a very important role in the development of the baby’s organs, but it is not so well known that hormones play a critical role in the development of the baby’s brain. A mother’s ability to maintain homeostasis (when hormones are totally in balance within the body) can help her baby increases the development of his brain.

This connection between the brain and hormones also brings us to a major global problem, pollution. Our environment is full of toxins that contain hormone disrupters (agents that mimic the hormones estrogen (BPA) and block testosterone action (Phthalates)) and inadvertently we are exposing our babies to these hormone disrupters that interfere with the development of a baby’s brain.

There are studies that found the possibility that a mother’s diet can protect against the negative effects of BPA. If you are thinking of falling pregnant or are already pregnant make sure you eat a nutritious balanced diet to help protect your baby from a harmful environment.

You can expect awareness of the influence of hormones on the brain, to increase drastically in the next decade and I sincerely hope this awareness will lead to an increased effort to clean up our environment.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090203134455.htm