Roles Of The Endocrine System

The Endocrine System is considered to be an integrative system because the hormones which are produced by this system act at the distance, many of those substances act in the different organs. The endocrine system and nervous system work together to coordinate functions of all systems in human body, they are responsible for maintaining the internal environment, nearly all physiological processes are affected by the hormones. They regulate almost all body function starting from metabolism, grow and development as well as water and electrolyte balance, reproduction and human behaviour. This system uses just one method of communication which are a chemical signals which are hormones, where the nervous system uses two: chemical and the electrical …show more content…
Those hormone receptors recognize the specific shapes, and respond only to those hormones that are recognized, they can be located on cells in the different body tissues. The responses which are triggered by hormones depends not only on those hormones, but also on the target cell. When the target cell receives the hormone signal, it can respond to them in the different ways like: stimulation of protein synthesis or secretion of the products and activation or deactivation of enzymes. The target cell activation depends equally on three factors, the blood level of the hormone, the relative number of the receptors for that hormone on the target cell or in the target cell and the other factor is the strength of the binding between the hormone and the receptor. There are two pathways of hormone action, one which involves the intracellular hormones receptors and one which involves cell membrane hormones receptors (appendix 4). The intracellular hormones receptors are located inside the cell, so those hormones need to cross the cell membrane to be able to connect with their receptors. The cell membrane contains the lipid bilayer which those hormone has to pass, the only hormones that can do that are the fat-soluble hormones, which are form from the cholesterol. The cell membrane hormone receptors as the name suggested can be found outside …show more content…
The lipid-soluble hormones also known as fat- soluble hormones are lipophilic, those hormones dissolve in fat, and are usually formed from the cholesterol (like steroids), therefore they can pass through cell membrane. So how do they work? Those hormones molecule passes through the cell membrane and attaches itself to the receptor, that move around inside the cell. This combination of the receptor and the hormone is called the “hormone-receptor complex”, this complex moves to the cell nucleus and binds to deoxyribonucleic acid. This bonding causes gene’s to “switch on or off”, this activity controls the biochemical activity in the