Signals: The Inside Story of Our Hormones

We are all 'hormonal' all of the time because to be 'hormonal' is to be human. Discover the miraculous and often misunderstood signalling system that makes us who we are.

Hormones animate every aspect and every moment of our lives, controlling our milestone moments as well as our day-to-day emotions and behaviour. Dr Saira Hameed is one of the UK's leading endocrinologists and in Signals she invites us into her clinic to see the lives interrupted by misfiring hormones and how fixing the problem recalibrates a life.

We sit beside Dr Hameed as she hears stories from spirit-sapping exhaustion to agonising infertility, absent libido to frenzied disorientation. We see an emaciated girl who is close to death and another battling obesity. We meet a young boy who can't stay awake and a teenage girl a whose racing heart will not be able to keep going much longer.

Signals takes us on a journey inside our bodies to reveal the spectacular endocrine life force at work. Combining compassionately told patient histories, with stories of pioneering medical breakthroughs and addressing common misconceptions and 'hormone hacks', this is a vital book for anyone who wants to understand their health and their happiness and to appreciate the wonder that to be human is to be hormonal too.

Signals is a special book, a witty, utterly fascinating guide to who you are and how you work. Saira Hameed reveals the endocrine system, and places it at the center of self knowledge; a system of control, but also a set of signals we can learn to interpret. You won't find hormone "hacks", or glib shortcuts, but by the end I understood my own appetite, fatigue, stress, and all the other experiences my hormones control, so much better. It's compassionate, humane and grounded in the author's deep clinical experience. A true gift. -- Chris van Tulleken ― author of ULTRA-PROCESSED PEOPLE

A fascinating tour of endocrinology, surely the most outlandish but also humane of the medical specialties. Hameed isn't just an exceptional doctor, she is a natural storyteller. Unputdownable! -- Gabriel Weston ― author of ALIVE

Signals is fascinating and totally absorbing. Dr Saira Hameed is both an insightful guide to the mysteries of our hormones and a gifted storyteller. -- Jenny Kleeman ― author of SEX ROBOTS AND VEGAN MEAT

This is the book I have been waiting for since I was a teenager. Hameed's timely, brilliant and engaging journey through the hormones that control our brains and bodies is infused not just with deep curiosity but wisdom, and compassion. Signals will make you question everything you thought you knew about the choices we make and emotions we feel: men, and women, and at every stage of our lives. -- Aarathi Prasad ― author of IN THE BONESETTER'S WAITING ROOM

Hameed is as eloquent as she is knowledgeable . . . A must-read in any era, but especially this one. ― Kirkus Reviews