Here’s my brief comic about how hormones can effect the body. We all have a slightly exasperated individual sitting in the office of our mind wondering how they got in this situation to begin with. (If the text is too hard to read then I would suggest either clicking on the image or right clicking on the image to view and then zooming there. I didn’t plan out my comic spacing before hand.)
Great job! I got a good laugh out of it.
Faith does a good job showing the different effects of testosterone on someone who takes testosterone supplements. Faith explains how hormones work and how they must bind to a specific receptor on target cells. The amount of receptors present on the target cells dictate how sensitive one is to the hormone. Once the hormone is binded to the receptor protein, signal transduction occurs. Faith does an excellent job showing the different effects testosterone has on the body. Furthermore, Faith expresses in the comic that it may take a long time for the hormones to take their effect. Also, Faith shows that the effects of the hormones cannot be controlled. This means that one may get side effects to the testosterone that they do not necessarily want.
In Faith’s essay, it is mentioned that testosterone is present in the testes of males at birth. When those who were male at birth undergo puberty, testosterone works to increase muscle mass, deepen the voice, and increased hair growth. In those that were not male at birth but want to become male, they must take testosterone supplements to have a similar effect to those born male. Since those that take the testosterone supplements do not have testes to produce the testosterone, they must constantly take oral supplements, topical gels, or injections. Those that undergo this process usually reach the desired effects on their body. As aforementioned, they do not get to select which effects testosterone has on them.
Athletes of both sexes have also been linked to testosterone supplements. The use of testosterone supplements promotes muscle growth artificially. The use of testosterone in athletes is detrimental as it rapidly increases muscle mass thus destroying the body.