If you have diabetes, thyroid disease, or another endocrine disorder, it can affect your entire quality of life. Endocrine diseases can wreak havoc on your growth, metabolism, sexual well-being, and mood. But the specialists at UPMC are experts at treating these problems — and helping you live your healthiest life.
The endocrine system consists of eight glands in the body. These glands make hormones that help control growth and development, metabolism, reproduction, sexual function, and mood. The hormones travel from the glands to other parts of your body through your blood.
If hormone levels get too high or low, it can cause multiple problems in your body. The most common endocrine disease is diabetes. Other hormonal disorders include problems with the thyroid gland, the adrenal glands, and the reproductive system.
Some rare endocrine disorders can even lead to cancer.
Our doctors can diagnose and treat a wide range of other endocrine diseases. They include:
Diabetes is a disease that happens when your blood sugar is too high. It's a chronic condition that affects how your body turns food into energy.
After you eat food, your body breaks it down into sugar and releases it into your bloodstream. That signals your pancreas to release insulin, which lets the blood sugar move into cells to use as energy. But when you have diabetes, the body doesn't make enough insulin, or it stops responding to the insulin.
Left untreated, diabetes can lead to heart disease, kidney disease, and vision loss. Although there is no cure for diabetes, our doctors can help you manage the disease with medical treatments and lifestyle changes.
Most people who have diabetes develop it later in life, but others get it in childhood or during their teenage years. Types of diabetes include:
They thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in the front of your neck. It makes hormones that control your metabolism, or how your body uses energy. Thyroid disorders can occur when your thyroid gland doesn't make the right amount of hormones.
Our specialists can help manage thyroid conditions such as:
One adrenal gland sits on top of each kidney. These glands make hormones that keep you healthy, like cortisol and adrenaline. They also make the hormones your body uses to produce the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone.
When the adrenal glands don't work right, your body may produce too much or too little of the hormones. You may develop one of the following disorders:
Hormone imbalances can cause a variety of problems related to the reproductive system. The glands (gonads) that produce these hormones occur in both men and women.
The female gonads are the ovaries, which produce eggs and female hormones. The male sex glands are the testicles, located behind the penis in the scrotum. They produce sperm and testosterone.
An imbalance in reproductive hormones can cause fertility problems and other issues in both men and women.
Reproductive hormone disorders include:
Neuroendocrine cells are a specialized type of cell that occurs in many places in the body. They spread through the body like nerve cells, but they also make hormones like endocrine cells. Sometimes tumors begin in these specialized cells.
Neuroendocrine cancers are rare, but they include a wide range of tumors. These tumors can occur in the small and large intestines, appendix, lungs, and pancreas. Types of neuroendocrine cancers include:
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