BODY HAIR, FACIAL HAIR, PERSPIRATION, SPOTS AND OTHER PUBERTY CHANGES: THE ROLE OF HORMONES
If the increase in the size of your penis and testicles and the growth spurt were the only things that happened during puberty, Dane and I could have ended this book right here. But, as you may have guessed, there are also other changes that go on in your body during puberty. In this chapter and the next, we will be talking about some of these other changes.
The role of hormones-You may be wondering what causes all these changes. The fact of the matter is that no one knows for sure, but we do know that it has something to do with hormones. Hormones are substances that are made by parts of our bodies called glands. The hormones made in our various glands travel to other parts of our bodies and tell those parts how to develop and grow, or how to work and behave properly.
Our bodies have a number of different glands making dozens of different hormones, most of which have long, tongue-twisting names that you can hardly pronounce, let alone spell. You could go crazy trying to remember the names of all these glands and hormones. But we don’t want you to go crazy, so we’re going to talk about only the glands and hormones that have the most to do with puberty.
Puberty starts in your brain. A few years before your sex organs start to grow larger or you start to go through your growth spurt, glands in your brain start making larger and larger amounts of certain hormones. One of these glands in your brain is called the pituitary gland. The pituitary makes a hormone that gets into your bloodstream and travels to your testicles. As you get older, your pituitary sends more and more of its hormones to your testicles. Your testicles are also glands. The hormones from your brain cause your testicles to make hormones of their own. The most important hormone your testicles make is testosterone.
As you begin to go through puberty, your testicles (in response to greater amounts of pituitary hormones) make increasing amounts of testosterone. The testosterone travels to other parts of your body and tells those parts how to grow and develop. For instance, it is testosterone that causes your penis, testicles and scrotum to grow larger. Testosterone is also responsible for the growth of those curly, crisp pubic hairs. In fact, testosterone plays a role in almost all of the changes we will be talking about in this chapter and the next.
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