What is the largest organ inYour skin your body?
It may surprise you to learn what skin is and you probably don’t even think of it as an organ. Regardless of what you think about it, your skin matters a lot. She covers and protects everything that your body has inside. Without the skin, the muscles, the bones, and the organs of the human body, they would not be in their corresponding place but scattered without any order. The skin holds all these elements together. The skin also:
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protect our bodies
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Helps our body maintain the right temperature
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Let us have the sense of touch
Don’t ignore your epidermis
The Your skin is made up of three layers, each with its corresponding important parts. The outer layer is called the epidermis. The epidermis is the part of your skin that you can see.
Look at your hands for a minute. Even if you don’t see any activity, your epidermis is hard at work. At the base of the epidermis new cells are developing.
When the cells are formed, they will begin to move towards the surface of your epidermis. This tour usually lasts from two weeks to a month approximately. As the new cells continue their upward movement, the more mature cells die and rise to the surface of your skin. The skin you see on your hands (and the rest of your body) is actually a buildup of dead skin cells.
Your skin says goodbye to cells
These mature cells are strong enough to cover your body and protect it. But they only stay in your body for a short time. Briefly, they are shed from your body in the form of scales. Although you can’t see this process, every minute of the day we lose approximately 30,000 to 40,000 dead cells from the surface of our skin.
In the time it has taken you to read this page to this line, you have probably lost around 40,000 cells. This means almost nine 9 pounds (4 kilos) of cells each year. But do not think that your skin will one day disappear due to this process, your epidermis is constantly developing new cells that come to the surface to replace mature cells. Most of the cells in your epidermis (95 percent) work to develop new skin cells.
And what about the remaining five percent? These cells are responsible for developing a substance called melanin. Melanin gives the skin its characteristic color. The darker your skin, the more melanin you will have. When you are exposed to the sun, this approximate five percent of cells in your skin develop additional melanin to protect you from sunstroke against the sun’s ultraviolet rays or UV rays.
That is the reason why your skin gets a tan if you spend a lot of time in the sun. But even though melanin is a powerful substance that protects you, it can’t do it completely on its own. Conveniently, you use sunscreen, clothing that protects you, such as a hat, to prevent painful sunburns. Protecting your skin now can help prevent
your skin dermis is below the epidermis
The next layer of your skin, below the epidermis, is the dermis. You cannot see your skin dermis because it is hidden under your epidermis. The dermis contains nerve endings, blood vessels, sebaceous glands, and sweat glands. It also contains collagen and elastin, resistant and flexible substances.
Nerve endings in your dermis are responsible for communicating how things you touch feel. These endings work with your brain and nervous system so that your brain receives information about what you are playing. Is what you feel the soft hair that covers the body of cats or the rough surface of your skateboard?
Sometimes what you can feel is dangerous, so nerve endings work with your muscles to keep you from hurting yourself. If you touch something very hot, the nerve endings in your skin respond immediately: Ouch! How hot is this!” The nerves quickly send this message to the brain or spinal cord which immediately commands the muscles to move your hands away from danger. All of this happens in an instant, without you even realizing it.
Dermis = Many blood vessels
Your dermis also contains numerous blood vessels which keep your skin cells healthy by supplying them with the oxygen and nutrients they need by getting rid of impurities. It’s hard to see these blood vessels in children, but you may be able to identify them by looking at your grandparents’ skin. As the dermis matures, it becomes thinner and easier to see through.
In the dermis, some glands secrete fat. These glands are also called sebaceous glands and they are always producing sebum, the natural oil of your skin. This rises to the surface of your epidermis to keep your skin lubricated and protected. Sebum also makes your skin water-resistant – as long as sebum is present, your skin won’t absorb water until soaked.
You also have sweat glands in your epidermis. Although you can’t feel it, you are sweating a little all the time. Sweat exits through pores, the tiny openings that allow sweat to leave your skin. When sebum and serum make contact, they form a protective barrier that can be a bit sticky.
A very easy way to see this adventure in action is to pick up a pin with your own fingers. Then, wash your hands with plenty of soap and water and dry them completely. Now try to grab the pin again. This time it won’t be so easy because your sticky skin barrier won’t be there anymore, but don’t worry, it will be back soon, as your sebaceous glands take care of developing a little more of that sticky substance.
The third layer is subcutaneous fat.
The third and deepest layer of skin is called the subcutaneous layer. This layer is mostly made up of fat that helps keep your body warm and can absorb shocks, such as if you bumped into something or fell. The subcutaneous layer of skin also helps your skin hold all the organs under it in place.
This layer of the is where the hair also grows. Each hair on your body grows through a small tube in your skin called a follicle. Each follicle has its own roots in the subcutaneous layer which continues through the dermis.
You have follicles covering your entire body, except for your lips, the palms of your hands, and the soles of your feet. Likewise, you have more follicles in some parts of your body than in others, you have more than 100,000 follicles in your head alone!
Your hair follicles depend on your sebaceous glands to give a glow. Connected to each follicle of your skin in the dermis layer is a small sebaceous gland that secretes sebum into the hair. This small coating coats the hair with oil, giving it shine and waterproof protection.
your Skin can keep you warm and cool
You can help you if you feel too hot or too cold. Your blood vessels, your hair, and your sweat glands cooperate to keep your body at the right temperature. If you had to run in the heat, you could end up with excess heat in your body. And if you were to play outside when it was really cold, your core temperature could drop. Either way, can always help you.
Your body is very smart. Learn how to keep your temperature right at just 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) to keep you and your cells healthy. Your skin can react to messages sent by your hypothalamus, the brain’s internal thermometer.
If you’ve been running on a hot day, blood vessels receive the signal from the hypothalamus to get rid of heat from your body, and they do so by supplying warm blood very close to the surface of your skin. This is the reason why sometimes your face gets red when you run around.
To cool you down, your sweat glands kick into action, producing lots of sweat to get rid of body heat into the air. The hotter you are, the more sweat your sweat glands will produce. Once sweat comes into contact with the air, it evaporates (meaning it changes from liquid to vapor) from , cooling you down.
And what happens when you are ice skating or sliding on snow? When you’re cold, your blood vessels prevent your body from losing heat by constricting as much as possible (meaning they get smaller) and keeping warm blood away from the skin’s surface. You may notice small bumps on your skin. Most kids call this type of bump goosebumps, but the fancy name for this process is the pilomotor reflex. The reflex causes many tiny muscles called the erector pili muscles to pull on your villi (the hairs on your skin so they can stay erect.
Your Skin eep it clean!
ke the rest of your organs (like your lungs, heart, and brain)needs a good bath. When you wash your skin, use very mild soap and water. And don’t forget to cover your wounds or scrapes with gauze or a band-aid, which will keep impurities away from them and help prevent infection. It is simply a way of being courteous to the that covers you!