Signals: The Hidden Power and Secret Language of Hormones

"An utterly fascinating guide to who you are and how youwork. Saira Hameed reveals the endocrine system, and places it at the center ofself-knowledge; a system of control, but also a set of signals we can learn tointerpret." --Chris van Tulleken, author of Ultra-Processed People

In the tradition of Atul Gawande and Henry Marsh, aphysician writer's expert examination of the extraordinary power of hormonesand the miraculous story of the life force signals that make us.

Hormones write life's masterplan - building a new humanbeing in utero, transforming a helpless newborn into a sturdy toddler, ignitingthe firestorm of puberty, conjuring the alchemy of fertilization and directingthe transition into menopause and beyond.

And all the while, day-to-day, minute-by-minute, hormonescontrol our mood and stress levels, how hungry we feel and how much we weigh, changes in libido and blood sugar, the circadian rhythm of our energy balanceand sleep-wake cycle.

In Signals, Dr. Saira Hameed takes us on ajourney through the endocrine system, the body's miraculous and oftenmisunderstood communication network of endocrine glands and hormone signals. Webarely notice these internal signals efficiently carrying messages from cell tocell because the power of hormones over our brains and bodies is so fundamentalthat their omnipotent control is simply felt as life itself.Yet when the body's signaling system breaks, we see with hindsight that be'hormonal' is in fact to be human.

Here Dr. Hameed combines expert experience, revelatoryscience, medical history, and cultural commentary with compellingcompassionately recounted patient cases. In this special confluence ofstorytelling Dr. Hameed invites readers to share in the mysterious, magicalinner world of the endocrine system, going beyond hormone hacks and hype totune out the noise and instead listen into the signals - to the powerfulendocrine life force of how the body talks to itself.

• Category Defining Book: Hormones are in the zeitgeistand Signals provides answers about what they can and can't control.
• Understand Your Own Body: Expert-authored analysisbased in science that leaves readers with a greater appreciation for how theendocrine system works and affects our lives.
• Gripping Medical Cases: Real stories of Dr. Hameed'spuzzling medical cases that provide a peak behind the curtain as to how doctorswork.

Dr. Saira Hameed is a Consultant Endocrinologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, a Senior Tutor at Imperial College London and a prizewinning teacher in the Imperial College School of Medicine. She studied medicine at Oxford University and University College London and was a visiting medical student in endocrinology at the Mayo Clinic. She has been a Medical Research Council Training Fellow and National Institute for Health and Care Research Clinical Lecturer. Dr Hameed holds a PhD from Imperial College London and in 2024 was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. She lives in London with her husband and four children.