Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss some of the chemical signals coursing through our bodies throughout our lives, produced in separate areas and spreading via the bloodstream. We call these 'hormones' and we produce more than 80 of them of which the best known are arguably oestrogen, testosterone, adrenalin, insulin and cortisol. On the whole hormones operate without us being immediately conscious of them as their goal is homeostasis, maintaining the levels of everything in the body as required without us having to think about them first. Their actions are vital for our health and wellbeing and influence many different aspects of the way our bodies work.

With

Sadaf Farooqi Professor of Metabolism and Medicine at the University of Cambridge

Rebecca Reynolds Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Edinburgh

And

Andrew Bicknell Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading

Produced by Victoria Brignell

Reading list:

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (first published 1962; Penguin Classics, 2000)

Stephen Nussey and Saffron Whitehead, Endocrinology: An Integrated Approach (BIOS Scientific Publishers; 2001)

Aylinr Y. Yilmaz, Comprehensive Introduction to Endocrinology for Novices (Independently published, 2023)