What causes masculinization?
Virilization can cause women to develop masculine traits, such as male pattern baldness and excessive facial and body hair growth. Virilization is typically caused by an imbalance in sex hormones. This may result from using male hormone supplements or anabolic steroids.
What is masculinization in biology?
Virilization or masculinization is the biological development of adult male characteristics in young males or females. Most of the changes of virilization are produced by androgens.
When virilization occurs?
Virilization is a condition in which a female develops characteristics associated with male hormones (androgens), or when a newborn has characteristics of male hormone exposure at birth.
What is Undervirilized?
Undervirilization is a medical term describing the state of a male whose body, especially the genitalia, shows evidence of below-normal prenatal (less commonly pubertal) androgen effects.
What are the symptoms of adrenal Virilism?
Adrenal virilism is a syndrome in which the excessive production of adrenal androgens causes virilization. A clinical diagnosis is confirmed based on elevated androgen levels. The symptoms include excess facial and body hair, deepening of the voice, baldness, acne, and increased muscularity and sex drive (2).
What is feminization?
1 : to give a feminine quality to. 2 : to cause (a male or castrate) to take on feminine characters (as by implantation of ovaries or administration of estrogens) Other Words from feminize Example Sentences Learn More About feminize.
What hormone is responsible for masculinization?
Testosterone, produced by Leydig cells, promotes development of Wolffian duct derivatives and masculinization of the external male genitalia. Finally, insulin-like 3 (Insl3) mediates transabdominal testicular descent into the scrotum (Nef and Parada 1999; Zimmermann et al. 1999).
How do you treat virilization?
Treatment for Virilization Doctors can treat many cases of virilization, depending on its cause: Tumor or adenoma. Doctors surgically remove tumors from the adrenal glands or ovaries. In many cases, doctors remove the whole adrenal gland that has a growth on it.
What does virilization look like?
Symptoms of virilization include excess facial and body hair (hirsutism), baldness, acne, deepening of the voice, increased muscularity, and an increased sex drive. In women, the uterus shrinks, the clitoris enlarges, the breasts become smaller, and normal menstruation stops.
What is Virilism?
Definition of virilism : the appearance of male secondary sex characteristics (such as facial hair) in the female.
What does Virilising mean?
Definition of virilization : the production of male secondary sex characteristics (such as facial hair) in a female also : the masculinization especially of the urogenital tract of a developing female fetus.
What is the difference between hirsutism and Virilism?
Hirsutism is the medical term that refers to the presence of excessive terminal (coarse) hair in androgen-sensitive areas of the female body (upper lip, chin, chest, back, abdomen, arms, and thighs). Virilization is more extensive than hirsutism with additional evidence of masculinization.