Friday, May 13, 2011

What is the Definition of Endocrinology, Toxicology and Drug Testing?

For my 20 years of existence on earth, I realized that there are more knowledge that I should learn and more terms to be defined. When I asked myself about the definitions of endocrinology, toxicology and drug testing, my answers were so superficial. Endocrinology, from the word itself, it is the study of the endocrine glands specifically the hormones that it produces. Toxicology, the study of substances that were found to have toxic effects to the body and finally, drug testing will be the process of detecting drugs-of-abuse in the body in a person.

So what is endocrinology? after reading some articles, I found the etiology of the word endocrine which are the two two greek words  endo meaning inside or within, and crinis for secrete. What does it secrete? Well, these are the hormones that regulates our body functions. They are the reasons(hormones) why women have mood swings, a reason why people hate us for some time. :) But aside from this, hormones have amazing function that is to control the reproductive cycle and produce human beings that will live in our world. That's us! :)

Now I’ll go to toxicology, the study of the adverse effects of substances to humans as well as to other living organisms. This is related to pharmacology which studies about drug actions to the body. Toxicology involves detection up to the treatment of poisoning which is essentially life saving. :)

Lastly, drug testing is the detection of substances that are prohibited and are found to be taken uncontrollably and  by other people. Truly, this is an essential thing to do to save those that are addicted and those that are just starting to be addicted. :)