the.com/androgen
The hormone family that built puberty's rougher edges, voice cracks included.
means A hormone (like testosterone) that drives the development of male sex characteristics.
from Built from Greek andro- ('man,' as in android and polyandry) plus -gen ('producer of,' the same ending in oxygen and pathogen). So, literally, 'man-producer' — coined in early endocrinology when scientists were naming hormones by what they seemed to generate.
- not just male
- women produce it too, just less
- testosterone's family
- testosterone is the famous androgen, not the only one
- made from
- synthesized from cholesterol, the body's favorite raw material
- fuels baldness
- shrinks hair follicles in people genetically primed for it