Is Homeostasis a fictional concept?

Is Homeostasis a fictional concept?

Homeostasis is the ability to maintain a relatively stable internal state that persists despite changes in the world outside.  All living organisms must regulate their internal environment to process energy and ultimately survive.

The key word in the definition of homeostasis is “maintain”.  Contrary to the current pursuit of symptom based relief, maintenance takes time and effort.  We’ve all heard the term ‘miracle drug’ and it seems as if this has been the driving force behind modern medication.  If we really want to move towards homeostasis, we need to move ourselves to work to understand our bodies as amazing machines capable of its own miracles.  Remember that these miracles…are not really miracles at all.  Our bodies are fully set up and equipped to maintain us 24/7/365.

Let’s look at this from a very basic level of understanding negative feedback as it relates to homeostasis.  Again, maintaining homeostasis requires that the body continuously monitors what’s going on inside.  All of our physiological conditions have a particular set point.  These set points are just physiological values around which normal range fluctuates.  Normal range is a restricted set of values directly associated with health and stability.  Control centers in parts of our body and our brain constantly monitor and react to deviations through negative feedback.  Negative feedback, basically, brings our systems back into their normal range.

There are 3 main components in a negative feedback loop.  A sensor (or receptor), a control center, and an effector.  If we look at the temperature regulation system in our body, we can understand this system relatively easily.  When our brains (control center) receive signals from skin sensors (sensors) from a stimulus that our bodies are experiencing heat that falls outside of the normal range, then the brain will send signals to the (effectors) to dilate blood vessels in order to bring core blood flow to the surface of the skin, allowing it to radiate heat outwardly. When that happens, the sweat glands are activated and increase their output. Also, respiration may increase which allows the release of heat from our lungs through both our nostrils and our open mouth.

In our bodies, we have what’s called the Endocannabinoid System (ECS). When a stimulus causes our bodies to detect something out of our normal range, the ECS generates its own naturally synthesized cannabinoids to interact with the cannabinoid receptors, which then stimulate a chemical response to help return us to a more homeostatic (normal and healthy) internal environment.

Scientists believe that, in some cases, the body doesn’t create enough natural cannabinoids for the ECS to work efficiently.  There are growing scientific studies that show that supplementing with phytocannabinoids, like CBD, may help the ECS function properly.

Stay tuned to Hemptium.com for more relevant and important studies as the future unfolds and please join us in our movement to homeostasis.

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Author:

Brian Workman – Co-Founder/Writer

HEMPTIUM™