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Asked by abbie520 to Derek, Elaine, Heather, Keith on 27 Jun 2013.
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Keith Siew answered on 27 Jun 2013:
It depends on how many of the organs they share… if there are two complete sets of organs but just the two bodies are fused… well when they’re separated, in theory they’d be perfectly fine (though its often a very complex thing and surgery is not that straightforward)
If the shared certain organs then they might have to adapt to lower levels of hormones or the organs could adapt to increase production to maintain the appropriate levels. I suppose if that didn’t happen and the person was in ill health hormone replacement therapy could be considered (basically injections of synthetic hormones).
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Heather Eyre answered on 27 Jun 2013:
That’s a really complicated question!
The degree of joining would make a difference – they could only share a small amount of their blood supply, or they could only have one heart!
but hormones are made when needed, they are continuously being made and broken down. There are complicated feedback loops in place to make sure you don’t make too much.
Imagine a plum as a gland that makes plumulin. The plum gland has a good blood flow and the cells in the flesh of the plum have receptors for plumulin. When they detect plumulin the rest of the gland (the stone) is told not to release any more plumulin.
As the plumulin in the blood is broken down, and the levels fall, the stone would no longer be inhibited by the cells of the flesh and can release plumulin again. The stone might also get messages from the brain telling it more plumulin is needed.
So although they may or may not have more glands, but each one may actually just produce less!
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