The Human Organs: Skin & Heart

SKIN

Let me begin this blog by posing a question, what is the largest organ in the body? Let me give you a hint, it covers the entire body and helps to hold all of our other organs and skeleton in place...
It is the SKIN! Many people do not know that human skin is classed as an organ, nor do they realise how large human skin is. Skin is classed as an organ due to the fact that it breathes and absorbs material.

Skins acts as a protective barrier for the inner organs of the body and helps to keep the body at the right temperature.

Human skin is filled with little nerves. These nerves help humans to distinguish what objects feel like - e.g. whether they are hot or cold. This is referred to as a sense of touch. The dermis layer of the skin contains essential receptors that coordinate and make sense of what we touch. This brings us onto our next discussion point, the different layers of the skin.

There are three layers of the skin - the epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous tissue. When you look at your skin the layer that you can see is the epidermis. Although you can see this very well, there are many functions of the epidermis that are not visible to the naked eye. Even while you are sleeping the epidermis layer of your skin is hard at work! It is busy forming new cells. As new cell are formed they make their way to the top of the skin and replace old, dead cells.

Layers of the skin

If you would like to learn more about your skin, and ways to protect it from harm, check out the below video.

Heart

The heart is considered one of the most important organs in the body. It has the important job of pumping blood around the whole body and acting as a filter to eliminate any waste that is circulating in our blood stream. The heart beats approximately 72 times a minute. That more than once every second, which is pretty quick.

The walls of the hearts comprise three layers, within these layers there are four chambers - the upper atrica and lower ventricals. These components were together to pump blood into the heart and back to the lungs to be reoxgenated. This is a continual process that aims to distribute oxygenated blood to all cells in the body.