Final Rest

For the past nine weeks, I have been writing about the human anatomy and sharing my knowledge with you. I have written topics on different parts of the human body that you can, either, donate to yourself, or donate to someone else.

Although I only wrote about a few number of body parts that people can donate, there are still quite a few other parts that people can donate and receive, such as a cornea transplant or a heart transplant.  I hope that by reading the posts, you can be more informed and aware of how much people are in need of these transplant to live.

As the name suggests, this will be my concluding post.

I want to continue and focus on my studies in college, and also, hopefully, learning more about human anatomy through my classes. My interest in human anatomy will not falter. By learning more, I can be more informed and can help spread the knowledge to others, so that others can continue to share the information, like a chain reaction.

However, I never did know how I would share this knowledge with others until recently.

Up until nine weeks ago, I did not think that I could share my knowledge and interest in human anatomy through blogging. However, you never know what can happen until you try. As for me, trying to blog about these topics made me feel comfortable and happy that, out there somewhere, someone is reading what I am writing. All I can hope for, is that my readers will help share this knowledge with friends and family so that they can help save another life.

As a new blogger, I have learned that, as long as you talk, well, write in this case, about something that you are interested in, the words will come out naturally. As I kept writing about the different parts of human anatomy, the words continued to flow through me more easily. I was excited that I was finally able to share what I know to others and, hopefully, share their new knowledge to people they know.

This new experience with blogging has taught me a lot about how I should relay information and how easy it can be to inform people. With blogging, not everyone who reads, knows a lot about that topic. So, it's really up to the blogger on how they want to present the information and how they want to express themselves, with really technical words or simple laymen terms.

Besides that, blogs can become very interesting, and have people continue to come back, wanting to read what the next post will be about. This interest can spread like wildfire, and soon, the blog will have a big following. With such a following, information can be spread very easily and, most likely, at sonic speed.

Although I don't have a big following, I hope that those who have read my blog posts, will inform others about the various parts of the human body that can be donated.

Was there a certain topic that you really liked? Comment below and help spread the information. 

Thanks for reading!

LIVEr for LIVEs

The liver is one of many vital organs, and especially vital for the digestive system; one, which you cannot live without. To understand more about the reason(s) why, let's go through the digestive process, shall we?

Watch the video below to get a preview of how the digestive system works.

Human Digestive System 

by:Apollo Hospitals Dhaka

The video also talks about how the nutrients are absorbed, however, I will not be focusing on that aspect. I want to focus mainly on how food goes from point A to point B. Let's take it step by step, according to a lecture from my teacher of the Health Pathway and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

1. Food is chewed in the mouth, which already starts to break down

2. Food is swallowed and goes down the esophagus

3. The food goes into the stomach, where the stomach muscles move the food around and the stomach acid (hydrochloric acid, very acidic by the way), breaks down the food

4. Broken down food goes through the small intestine (actual place where digestion takes place)

*FUN FACT #1* According to WebMD, the small intestine is approximately 20 feet long! All that is wrapped up tightly inside you! Can you believe that?!

5. Liver absorbs some of the nutrients, and also secretes bile, which digests fat

6. Further broken down food goes into the large intestine, also known as the colon, where water is absorbed into body

*FUN FACT #2* According to WebMD, the large intestine is approximately 5 feet long!

7.  Digested food from large intestine becomes fecal matter, which goes into the rectum, and out the anus, where people defecate.

A lot goes on to digest what you eat, doesn't it? Play the video again and try to see if you understand the process after watching it a second time.

But where does learning about the digestive process lead us? There is one vital organ that was mentioned earlier, that we cannot live without. That organ is the liver.

Why is the liver important to us, and in digestion? According to both American Liver Foundation and Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center, the liver is essential because it processes important nutrients for the body to absorb, as well as, breaking down harmful products that are in the bloodstream.

Furthermore, Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center states that the liver is the ONLY organ in the entire body that can regenerate itself. This is important when it comes to liver transplants because the liver can fully regenerate the portion that was lost, like nothing ever happened in the first place.

Liver transplants are widely needed in the United States. According to the American Liver Foundation, over 16,000 Americans are waiting for a liver transplant. The liver has many functions that the human body needs in order to properly function. Many of which includes digestion, getting rid of harmful substances in the blood. But, the liver is also susceptible to many diseases like hepatitis A, B, and C, and liver failure due to alcohol.

If you want to learn more about liver transplants and how you can save someone with a liver transplant, go to http://www.liverfoundation.org/ for information and resources.

The video below is a patient who received a liver transplant.

Miniclip of Liver Transplant Patient

by: Penn Medicine

 

Do you know someone who has gotten a liver transplant? Comment below and share your story with others.

Be A Bone Marrow Donor Today and Save A Life

There are many ways you can help save others, and being a bone marrow donor is one of those ways.

So what is bone marrow? How can we use bone marrow to help save a life? According to Medline Plus, bone marrow is the material that is inside your bones. It contains a multitude of stem cells that will eventually become blood cells.

We can use bone marrow from a donor and transplant the stem cells to the patient, called allogenic bone marrow transplant. The other transplant, which will not be the main focus of this post, is called autologous bone marrow transplant. This procedure is for the patient to donate healthy stem cells from one site, to the area that needs those cells.

The procedure for harvesting these stem cells from the bone marrow is pretty simple. The doctor puts the person under anesthesia, and inserts a needle in the hip bone, to extract the bone marrow. Watch the video below to see what bone marrow extraction looks like.

Bone Marrow Extraction*

Video by: MetroMD

*Note that the procedure done in the video is for an autologous bone marrow transplant, which moves healthy stem cells to the affected area, within the same person. The procedure for harvesting bone marrow for others who need the bone marrow transplant, is also the same.

Although the procedure for harvesting bone marrow is a simple matter, the hard part for this procedure, is finding a match between patient and donor because of the many factors that doctors need to consider. This is why bone marrow transplants for people who need the procedure, is not easy. It can take months, or even longer, to find an exact match. Sometimes, the person won't even be able to find a match.

According to the Institute for Justice, more than 130,000 Americans will be diagnosed with a blood disorder, such as leukemia, that only a bone marrow transplant can help save. The majority of people who need a bone marrow transplant have to go to the national registry to find a match, which can take a lengthy amount of time.
Not only that, according to the statistics that is provided on the website:

 African-American patients find a match only 25 % of the time,

Asians 40%,

Hispanics 45%,

and Caucasians 70% of the time.

The need for more people of different racial backgrounds to sign up and be a bone marrow donor is crucial. Without you, people who suffer from these diseases will die.

Please take the time and sign up today. Click here to be a bone marrow donor and help save a life. You can also read stories of others who were saved because of bone marrow transplants.

Being a bone marrow donor can help change so many people's lives. Do you know someone who is a bone marrow donor, or have gotten a bone marrow transplant? Leave a comment below, and please, share your stories.

My Fascination With the Human Body

Picture of the male human body.
 Courtesy from Steve Jurvetson

Since I have taken particular science classes during high school, human anatomy has become one of my favorite subjects to learn about. Although I am a Microbiology major at San Francisco State University (SFSU), I still love learning about how each part of our body works and how it keeps our body, as a whole, functioning.      

            The beginning of where this all started was back in high school. Biology was one science course that students were required to take. Although I enjoy learning about the human anatomy, my high school biology class was not the starting point.

            In my school, there is a program called the Health Pathway, which consists of a two-year program, and was also the starting point of when my interest in human anatomy began.. The first year of the program, which you enter when you are in 11th grade, is a course in physiology, where students are taught how the human body works. The second year is a course called Introductions to Biotechnology, where students learn about how the biotech industry work in labs and the lab skills associated with it.

            Both classes were really fun and enjoyable. In Physiology, we learned about different systems in our body, such as how the brain works, the muscular and skeletal system, and how blood flows through the body. During Intro to Biotechnology, we learned about different lab skills, like testing DNA for various reasons and inserting genes into the DNA of microorganisms to produce things like insulin.

            During my time in the first year of the program, an opportunity came from City College of San Francisco (CCSF). We were able to take a course at one of the CCSF campuses, while also attending high school, and also obtain college credit. This course was called HIT 50A, or Medical Terminology.

            This class helped me further my interest in human anatomy. In that class, we learned about the medical lingo, and how to deconstruct the medical terms to understand what it means, such as "enteritis", which means an inflammation in the small intestine. Along with learning about the medical lingo, the professor also had us learn about different systems, such as the circulatory, digestive, and the reproductive system.

            With the knowledge and experience I've gained from high school and the college course, I have really taken a liking to the human anatomy because it is fascinating, like space; people do not know much about it unless we take the time to learn what is there . It is surprising how the different parts of our body function every minute and every day of our lives, yet, we do not really think about or realize what is going on inside.

 Furthermore, if we knew more about how our body functions, we could make smarter decisions with helping our society by spreading our knowledge and donating parts of our body to people who need organ and/or tissue transplants.

Now that you've gotten to know me a little better and why human anatomy fascinates me, I hope you will learn and spread this knowledge for others to know. Are there any parts of the human body you like, or would like to know more about?