Let's look at this example together. The example says the table below lists several hormones and a short description of their specific function in the body. Using this information, for each hormone, consider whether the hormone plays a role in each of the 5 major body functions listed. If a hormone does play a role, place a check mark in the correct column. We have 5 hormones here. At this point, you are not expected to know the specific hormones or what they do. We will get to that. But our 5 hormones are insulin, estrogen, antidiuretic hormone, cortisol, and growth hormone. And here again, you don't need to know this yet, but we have this oversimplified general function of these hormones, listed out. And then we have our 5 categories, and these 5 categories again, we said before these are kind of, you know, very general. Maybe, you know, you could break things up differently. But for our purposes, this is a good way to divide things. Those are going to be growth and development, reproduction, electrolyte balance, metabolism, and the body's defenses.
So first up, we'll talk about insulin. Insulin, we're going to say here, well, insulin sends out a signal, updating the body about something that's going on, and the response is that it lowers blood sugar. So which of those 5 categories does that seem to fit under? Now, to me, that sounds like metabolism. Anytime you're talking about a nutrient, it's very likely to be in the category of metabolism. And blood sugar? That's definitely a nutrient.
Next up, we have estrogen. Estrogen, it says, is going to regulate secondary sexual characteristics and regulates menstruation. So which category is for estrogen? Well, right away when I see regulates menstruation, well, that's definitely tied into reproduction. Menstruation are those reproductive cycles. And also, obviously, the secondary sexual characteristics. Sexual characteristics are there for reproduction. But also, people have secondary sexual characteristics because they grew them and they developed them. So I'm going to put a check under growth and development because whether you grow and develop into having a male type body or a female type body depends on which sex hormones you get early in development, and how the target cells respond to those sex hormones. And an important player in that is going to be estrogen.
Next, we have antidiuretic hormone. Antidiuretic hormone is going to send out some signal. The response to that signal is that it decreases urine production and increases fluid in the blood. So which category would that fall under? Well, I'm going to say under electrolyte balance. If the signal goes out, like, hey. You know, salt concentration here is getting kind of high. Well, the kidneys are going to respond by making less urine, and that's going to increase the amount of fluid in the blood, and that's going to lower that salt concentration. It's going to regulate that electrolyte balance.
Next, we have cortisol. Cortisol increases blood sugar for a stress response. Well, when I look at that, and I'm going to move over here to get a little out of the way. Blood sugar, that's a nutrient. So I'm putting something under metabolism. It's definitely regulating metabolism in some way but it's regulating metabolism as part of a stress response, and a stress response has to do with defending the body in some way. So cortisol has these broad functions that sort of overlap metabolism and activating the body's defenses. Again, putting things in a single category like this can be difficult sometimes because the body is complex.
Well, finally, we have a growth hormone, and a growth hormone is going to initiate cell division. This one feels a little less complex. I'm going to go ahead and put my check mark right there under growth and development. Now, again, things actually are complex. When you're growing and developing, you need to adjust metabolism. There are other things that happen to happen in the body. These categories are a good way to organize thoughts, to organize the types of things that hormones are doing. Realize they are not a very specific or exhaustive list, or they don't have really hard lines. But organizing your thoughts this way can help, so I encourage you to do it. Like always, we got more practice problems to follow. You should give them a try.