Know about hormones secreted by male and female gonads

Male and female gonads secrete four hormones. Know about them in detail in this post.

What does gonads consist of?

Gonads consists of both male testicles and female ovaries.

What are the hormones that are secreted by gonads?

Hormone feedback cycles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Four hormones are secreted by the gonads: They are

• Female sex hormones – estrogen and progesterone
• Male sex hormones – testosterone and androsterone

Each sex has a predominance of a one or the other pair of hormones. Males have a small amount of female hormones and females consists of a small amount of male hormones.

In both the sexes, the puberty is signalled by the release of the gonadotrophic hormones (gonadotrophins) of the pituitary gland. These stimulate the production of the sex hormones by the sex glands and secondary sexual characteristics will appear.

In men, the secondary sexual characteristics include the enlargement of the testicles and penis, growth of facial, axillary (armpit) and pubic hair, enlargement of the larynx which results in deepening of the voice. Pubescent women also experience pubic and axillary hair growth, breast growth, changes in the genital tract that give it childbearing capability.

Estrogen-related receptor beta (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Estrogen and progesterone control the cyclic changes within the uterus which involve the development, ripening, ovulation (discharge of the egg) to be fertilized, the preparation of the lining of the uterus to receive a fertilized egg, demantling of the lining of the uterus, all these complex biochemical events occur as a part of the women’s menstrual cycle.