Endocrine & Metabolic
The body's chemical messengers — diabetes, thyroid, steroids, hormones, and the drugs that tune them.
Foundations
How hormones signal and how feedback loops work — the logic behind every endocrine drug.
Diabetes: Core
Type 1 vs type 2, insulin and its curves, and the emergencies — hypoglycaemia and DKA.
Diabetes: Drug Classes
Metformin, the incretins (GLP-1/DPP-4), the SGLT2 flozins, sulfonylureas and the rest.
Thyroid
An under- or over-active gland — levothyroxine replacement and the antithyroid drugs.
Adrenal & Corticosteroids
The master anti-inflammatory — corticosteroids, their side effects, safe withdrawal, and adrenal disease.
Sex Hormones & Reproduction
Estrogens, progestogens and contraception, HRT and menopause, androgens and anti-androgens.
Bone & Calcium
Osteoporosis drugs and the calcium–vitamin D–PTH system that keeps bone strong.
Pituitary
The master gland — growth hormone and prolactin in front, ADH and desmopressin behind.
Obesity & Metabolic
Weight-loss pharmacology, gout and uric acid, and where metabolic lipid disorders fit.
How Hormones — and Endocrine Drugs — Work
The nervous system sends fast, private messages down wires. The endocrine system does the opposite: it releases chemical messengers into the blood that travel everywhere, yet act only on the cells built to hear them. Grasp how a hormone delivers its order — and why some act in seconds while others take days — and every endocrine drug in this whole section suddenly makes sense.
Feedback Loops: The Thermostat Behind Every Endocrine Drug
The body controls its hormones the way a thermostat controls a room: sense the level, and switch the heating off when there's enough. This single loop explains why giving a hormone as a drug can silence the patient's own gland, why stopping steroids suddenly is dangerous, and how a blood test can tell whether the problem lies in the gland or in the brain above it.
Diabetes: Type 1 vs Type 2, and What Treatment Is Trying to Do
Diabetes is really two different diseases that share one number. In type 1 the body has no insulin; in type 2 it has plenty but has stopped listening to it. That single distinction decides everything — which drugs work, why type 1 always needs insulin, and why type 2 has a dozen drug classes to choose from. Get the difference clear, and the entire diabetes toolkit organises itself.
Insulin: Types, Curves, and How Regimens Are Built
There is only one insulin hormone, but a whole family of insulin drugs — and they differ in one thing: timing. Some act within minutes and vanish; others trickle steadily for a whole day. Once you can read the action curves, the way doctors build an insulin regimen stops being a mystery and becomes a simple matter of covering meals and covering the background.
Diabetic Emergencies: Hypoglycaemia and DKA
Diabetes has two emergencies that pull in opposite directions. One is glucose crashing too low — fast, frightening, and reversible in minutes with sugar. The other is glucose soaring while the body drowns in acid — slower to build but deadly if missed. Knowing how to recognise each, and the one first move that treats it, is genuinely life-saving knowledge.
