Unit 5 Reflection

 "Unit 5 Reflection"

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This unit was about the Digestive System, Metabolism, Endocrine System, and Lymphatic System. The Digestive System includes the Alimentary Canal which is the pathway that the food goes from your mouth to being defecated. The picture to the left shows all of the organs in the Digestive/Alimentary Canal. The digestive system is responsible for absorbing, digesting, secreting, and defecating. We did one lab for this unit about the digestive system which I had a previous blogpost as well and that can be found here. In our metabolism there are three stages. Stage 1 breaks down large molecules to smaller ones. Stage 2 takes those small molecules and turns them into Acetyl CoA. Stage 3 has common pathways such as the Krebs cycle and ETC that are oxidation for the fuel molecules. Also, there are three different states.  The Fed state is right after you eat. The pancreas releases insulin and the majority of glucose is taken by the liver to be converted into glycogen. The fasting state is where the insulin levels drop and the glucagon levels rise. The body also uses more fats for energy in order to conserve the glucose. The last state is the Starvation state. This occurs 4-5 days after eating where the muscles rely on adipose tissues for fuel. The Endocrine System controls the processes involved in movement and physiological equilibrium. There are many different glands such as the pituitary gland, the thyroid gland, and the parathyroid gland that are involved in this system. Some organs that are in the endocrine system are the pancreas, which secretes insulin or glucagon; gonads, which are either testes or ovaries that deal with testosterone or estrogen; and the kidneys, which regulate red blood cell production. The last system that we learned about in this unit was the Lymphatic System which specializes in immunity, lipid absorption, and fluid recovery. There are three different kinds of lymphocytes. T-cells, which you ca read more about here from my previous posts, deal with cellular immunity. Then there are b-cells for humoral immunity, and Natural Killer cells which provides immunological surveillance.

I think that this unit was very fascinating but it was a little bit difficult for me to keep up with all the new information. I really enjoy human anatomy and learning about the body, but when there is so much information to learn in a relatively short amount of time, it can be slightly daunting.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!
Amanda