Inside The Living Body

National Geographic Video Response

By: Matalyn Dearsman

The human body, to completely understand every disease, cure, treatment, or anything to do with the
human body, one must understand the two basics: Anatomy and Physiology. Anatomy is the study of the
structures, shapes, and parts of the body. Physiology is the study of the processes of living organisms. Meaning
physiology is the study of how the body and its parts function. The video Inside the Human Body by National
Geographic; explains how the anatomy and physiology of the body changes through a humans lifetime.
The video starts out as a fetus developing in a womb and over a 40 week period develops into a body. It
also goes to explain how the brain is the first organ to develop and that infants are born without an immune
system. It continues in describing functions and structures of the body: nerves in your nose send electrical
signals to the brain, sound waves vibrate the ear drum, or even that without the smallest bone in your body you
would not be able to walk. The video explains the gradual development of an infants eye sight. Babies when
first born have blurred vision; but eventually rods and cones transfer electric signals to the eyes and at two
months a baby can then distinguish color. At four months a baby can finally see their mothers face. The
presentation then goes on to explain other developments such as: osteoblasts hardening the skeleton or how the
small intestine absorbs nutrients.
Later on, the video starts to explain puberty. Puberty begins in the hypothalamus. Hormones are
responsible for many reasons for many changes of young people. As the body grows and develops some fun
facts is that:
Trillions of cells make up tissues/organs
Every 10 years you have a new body
Every year you grow 7 miles of hair
Loud noises are turned into nerve impulses
Alcohol raises BP and causes irregular heart beat
Inner eye, brain, and heart cells do not regenerate
Later on in life human bodies change dramatically. For example, fat is a lot harder to lose and starts to
cause problems. Metabolism slows down as you get older; causing fat build up. Fat can smother organs and
other available space throughout the body. The heart has to work harder to pump blood through fat, which can
cause heart attacks and heart disease. Stress plays a damaging role in life and speeds up the aging process.
Stress can cause heart attacks because it puts strains on the blood pumping which causes high blood pressure
that can lead to even more health problems. Stress also damages blood vessels; when blood vessels rupture in
the brain, strokes occur.
Towards the end of a humans aging process many actions take place. The bodys bone and muscle
weaken, women no longer produce hormones so Menopause occurs, the body slows down, osteoclasts destroy
bone faster than osteoblasts can create new bone. Eventually organs begin to shut down or fail, leading to death.
When death occurs: tissues are not able to get oxygen, endorphins are released; skin cells can take 24 hours to
stop dividing, takes ten seconds for the brain to stop and send the last impulse. All senses gradually stop;
hearing is the last to go.