Hormones

Our gland-mass models of the human stress pathway (HPA - accompanied by longitudinal measurements of hair cortisol), thyroid axis, beta cells and ovaries explain phenomena on the timescale of weeks-months. These phenomena include addiction, depression, bipolar disorder mood episodes, prediabetes, subclinical thyroid diseases, ovarian dynamics and PCOS, and hormone seasonality. The growth and shrinkage of glands also provides systems level functions such as dynamic compensation (strict homeostasis of key variables and strict robustness of their dynamic response curves to a given stimulus) in the face of variation in physiological parameters such as insulin resistance, blood volume and metabolic state of the cells.