Introduction to Cellular Communication

Cells talk to each other. How do they figure out what the hell to do when we're supposed to
have some kind of a function? There needs to be this sort of cell to cell chit chat. Okay, I'm
ready to send something downstream. All right, gate's open, find your way in. All right, need a
little help, so maybe get a pusher molecule to get in there.

So there's all this cell to cell communication that's going on. And the lipid bilayer, by the way,
like everything in the body, is dependent upon.

The Role of Diet in Cellular Health

What you consume, what you eat. And it, or, and for that matter, how your body is able to
absorb what you eat, and there, and assimilate it so that it can then, when your body does
replenish its cells, that you actually have the raw ingredients to make new good cells.

The Impact of Poor Nutrition on Cellular Function

The reason I bring that up is because the salicylate in particular is very vulnerable, particularly
for folks who either A, you're on a very low fat diet or B, eat a lot of the wrong fats, not really
healthy fats, but fats that break down the body because they're causing more inflammation.
Trans fats and a lot of saturated fat, for example.

Or they don't have the ability to properly absorb the fats. Maybe they don't have lipase
enzymes, their pancreas is all screwed up. Or, maybe, They don't chew their food properly, so
they're not going to be able to properly digest and break down their food, so it passes out more
whole. Any of those kinds of things, in addition to a lot of disease processes, inflammatory
bowel ulcerative colitis, Crohn's, things like that, make it very difficult for people to get proper
absorption, even if they're eating a stellar diet.

That's going to affect every single cell in the body because of this phospholipid layer. And it's
primarily the lipids that start to break down the fact that there's not a good lipid in the body.
The cells break down one by one. And you'll see it first in the skin and the hair. Because there'll
be things like, sloughing off of skin more quickly.

Dandruff sometimes is a sign. Really dry hair, dry skin sometimes is a sign, sometimes, not
always, but breakdown of other systems as well happens when people don't even realize it's
happening and then of course, manifests into chronic disease and a lot of times that's a reason
why people aren't very well.
Question? Yes ma'am.

Understanding the Plasma Membrane

Where is that plasma membrane located in your body? Every single cell has one of these
membranes. 75 to 100 trillion cells in the body have this, that they rely upon.

And that underscores why good dietary fats are so important. Because every single cell in the
body requires that we have this good layer around it. And if you've messed up. your gut, or you
have a really poor diet with respect to essential fats, then you're going to suffer.

The Importance of Essential Nutrients

And what, why is something called essential in the diet?

It's necessary. Yeah, because your body doesn't produce it on its own. And it is required for the
body to function naturally. Now there are some things that your body will manufacture for you
with other things that you consume. But in the case of many things, essential amino acids,
essential fats, and certain nutrients like vitamin C, for example, we can't produce those things
in our own bodies.

We rely on consumption of things in order to restore those elements in our body. And that's
why, as I said, we'll be looking at nutrition and wellness as a whole because it is dependent
upon And all of that, every aspect of your body is dependent upon that. It really all starts with
diet and nutrition and how your body is able to cope with that.

The Role of the Gut in Nutrition and Wellness

And so having a good gut function as well. And as a naturopathic physician, of course, that's
where we make our money. That's where we, that's where our careers are based. and
primarily in diet and nutrition and whether or not a person has that to support the ability for
the rest of the body to function.

Because without that you're toast. If you don't have that foundation, it's building a house on
pebbles. If you have a rocky foundation, forget it. It's not going to establish for very long. And
so that's the case with your human body as well.
Cellular Transport Mechanisms
So as far as getting stuff across this membrane, We have a couple of different transport
mechanisms.

Passive transport via things like diffusion, filtration, and osmosis. And we'll talk about these in a
minute. And then active transport that requires some form of energy. And we'll talk about the
different types of active transport. Endocytosis, phagocytosis, and penocytosis in a moment.

Understanding Diffusion, Osmosis, and Filtration

Okay, so the passive process first involves diffusion.

Diffusion is the movement of particles from an area of high concentration to an area of low
concentration. So we're talking about particulate, alright? So here we've got a pitcher of water.
We dump a lump of sugar into it, which starts to dissolve over time. And it spreads out those
particles from a highly concentrated area to a lower concentrated area to spread it out to
create homeostasis or a balance.

Where now we've got everything is, it's fully diffused and it's, every single part of that fluid
now has the same concentration of particulate. So that's diffusion, where particles move from
high concentration to low concentration. Osmosis, on the other hand, is the net movement of
water. Not particles.

Okay, so this is water through a selectively permeable membrane. Alright? Whereas filtration
is particles across the membrane due to differences in pressure. We'll look at that in just a sec.
That was a quickie of diffusion there. Another way of looking at diffusion. Again, how ultimately
something will end up being fully concentrated.

This being concentrated in one spot and ultimately Over time, all of the particles will spread
out evenly throughout that solution. As for osmosis, here you see where the water level is even
here, but we've got different amounts of particles in here. With osmosis, we've got movement
of the water to even out the concentration of the particles.

The particles haven't changed, it's just that we've lowered the water level here, and we've
raised the water level here, so now the concentration is relatively the same in each half of these
chambers. Do you understand how that works? So this is movement of water from one place
to the other to get a balance of concentration.

So it's the same percentage of concentration of particles to fluid in each half of this tube. Now
that we've moved more water into here. So this has created homeostasis in a really different
way, through osmosis. This particular membrane wasn't able to have particulate moving, it was
able to have fluid movement.

Question? So how does the water move faster over here than there? Again it's all about trying
to create a balance, or create homeostasis. And in this case Because it was, this particular
membrane is permeable, semi permeable to water, the water will shift over to get the
concentration balance.

Right now, since there's more particulate here than there is here, it's not a balanced
concentration when there's the same amount of water. So we've got to shift the water over to
create a balanced percentage in both sides of the tube. And how do we do that? That's where
this membrane comes in. The membrane allows for that to happen because there is an
imbalance and the body's constantly looking for homeostasis.

That's the key.

The Body's Innate Wisdom and Homeostasis

The body's constantly looking for homeostasis. Good thing you never have to think about that.
It happens naturally. Sometimes slower in one person than another, but the body has this
innate wisdom. It's always seeking homeostasis. It's the vital force in our bodies. You cut
yourself, you don't have to think heal.

The body heals itself. If it's given the right tools. Now you keep reopening that wound, it's
going to make it difficult to heal, right? But the body has its innate wisdom. It knows what to
do. This is what I'm talking about. The vital force will take care of it. We don't have to do
anything. You don't have to do anything.

The cells know what to do. As long as they're functioning properly. But if they lack a good
membrane, eh, that's a whole other story. But that's where a healthy livestock comes in. You
understand? So it's really the fact that your body has this innate wisdom and this innate desire
for balance all the time.

Unless there's some significant disease process going on that mucks with that, that makes that
challenging and more difficult, generally speaking, there are standards within the body.
Everybody has Some of the same functionality from human to human. It might be slightly
different, because there are four different blood groups, but we'll talk about that later in the
term.

At any rate, for the most part, humans are humans. So we all have the same functionality.
We're all in this together kind of thing. We all function the same way. We all gotta use the
toilet, we all sweat. We all need to sleep, we all need to eat good food. But do we all do that
well? Maybe not. Eh, we're not born with an owner's manual.
It's not easy. It takes people like me to educate people because it doesn't happen naturally.
Especially, educational systems nowadays, eh, they barely even talk about health and nutrition.
Governments don't put public education first in terms of, oh, how are you supposed to live your
life?

No, it's reading, writing, and arithmetic. What? Who cares? I want to know how to live my life,
that's why I went to medicine. As for filtration, this is a an example of what filtration is all
about. Not on the cellular level, but if you can imagine, on the cellular level, there's a
membrane, and this is represented by the net, and particles of different sizes, much like there
are different sized balls, and depending upon the size of the ball, determines whether or not it
can actually cross through that membrane.

If the membrane's holes are only so big, Then it's going to block large particles from coming
through that don't belong there until they are broken down into small particles that are safe to
pass through. A good example of that is the difference between proteins entering your gut
lining. And this is a filtration thing through the gut.

Via the bloodstream. Where from the gut into the bloodstream that's how there's this filtration
that gets From crossing the elements that's in the gut into the blood so that it can nourish your
whole body. Alright? If there's a breakdown in the system, large particles will get into your
bloodstream that don't belong there.

That's how allergies happen. I'm talking leaky gut. Leaky gut. Good for you. Yes. Yeah, if our
body doesn't, if our body allows large particles to sieve out that aren't supposed to be there,
then their problems happen and the body sees that as a foreign object and starts attacking it.
Autoimmune diseases commonly are a result of that as well, where the body literally attacks
itself.

So this is another reason why, it's really important to consider how healthy are you? Are you
taking in what you're supposed to be taking in? Or is the filtration system also compromised?
Normally with a healthy membrane, only the small particles will go through. The large particles
have to get broken down first before they can enter.

That's the body's protective mechanisms that are built in. So when you chew your food, do you
chew it? That's a good thing to start with. Make sure you chew your food really well. When we
talk about digestion, I definitely We'll pick up on that again. You'll hear me talk about that a lot.
Filtration requires some force, typically.

And again, we're talking about perhaps Not an outside energy source, but more pressure, so
to speak. On a cellular level.
Active Transport Processes
But again, if the particles are too large, they're not going to fit through that membrane, and it's
going to have to require some breakdown before the filtration can occur.

Okay, now the active transport processes. Okay, movement of atoms and molecules against
the concentration gradient. Like from low to high concentration. That's against the grain.
Typically we can't do that. If you have active transport mechanisms, that is possible. So you're
gonna require a lot of energy for this to occur.

There are two types of active transport endocytosis, which is things going into endo, into a cell.
Cyto is the prefix for cell. So endocytosis is things going into the cell, exo or exiting. cytosis is
going out of the cell. Okay? And in each case, there's energy that's required in order for that to
occur.

And these are processes that definitely take a lot more out of a person, for sure. But again, we
do have these processes occurring all day long in the body. What illustrated here is this
phospholipid layer. This is the membrane, and it has these carrier protein molecules lodged in
between these phospholipid, this phospholipid layer to allow this transport to occur.

But again, it's going to require a lot of energy to get a lower concentration of particulate to
move into an area of higher concentration. But it does happen every day, every moment. Yeah,
active process. Here's an example of endocytosis and how a particle is entering the cell and
what happens is once it attaches to the cell membrane, you see the membrane actually
collapses on itself and creates this sphere.

It's like it engulfs and eats the particle. That eating is called phagocytosis. Phago is the
abbreviation or the prefix for eating. And now this particle is safely in the cell, and can do
whatever it's supposed to do. So this phagocytosis is cellular eating that's part of this
endocytosis process.

Penocytosis is when the cell is drinking, or is taking in fluid. Alright, now exocytosis. This is
when stored material now needs to exit the cell. For whatever reason, in terms of functionality
within the body. And so this stored material is in this vesicle that fuses with the cell membrane
that uses energy now to release the stored material into the external environment outside the
cell.

In what's referred to as the extracellular fluid. This fluid outside the cell. There's a lot of
extracellular there's a lot of in between cells, there's a lot of extracellular fluid. And so
movement of material in and out of cells happening all day long for lots of different reasons, in
terms of the different functions of each of the cells.
And I'm being vague that way because every cell has different functions and so it's like, it would
take me all day long to talk about it if I talked individuality. Okay.

Levels of Organization in the Body

As for levels of organization Beyond the cells, on a macroscopic level. So what we can now see
with the naked eye. We'll be talking about tissues next.

Then we'll get into organs, and organ systems, and of course the organism is the human body.
As for the body tissues, groups of similar cells that are acting together for a very specific
function.

Understanding Body Tissues

We have four. Basic types of tissue in the human body. And by the way, Guaranteed, these
types of things will end up on a board exam at some point.

The different types of tissues in the body. And I'll mention that multiple times during your
education here Oh, by the way, this is the kind of thing that test takers like to test on. So you
have a clue, you can make an asterisk nest of it so you know the kinds of things to study when it
comes time.

Frankly, you should start your studying now. The more you take in, and the more you try to
absorb, little by little, with all that repetition, the easier it gets at the end. For each lesson, I
recommend, go through, if you didn't understand something, go through it.

Maybe read the text and, try to get a better understanding of it, so that then it builds on itself.
And I'll show you each week how stuff builds as well. I'll go back and make it relevant, like, why
was all that stuff I talked about today so relevant? It'll come up later, too.

Some of it, anyway. Especially when it relates to body tissues, because now we're getting into
stuff you can actually see and touch. Okay? We've got four different types of tissue in the
human body. Epithelial, connective, muscle, and nervous tissue. Alright. As for the type of
tissues, we actually see all of those tissue types in this image.

So what are you looking at here? This is a cross section of the leg taken right here. So if you
were cut into somebody's leg, remove the top half, and now look straight down. That's a cross
section, or also known as a transverse section. And now what we see are, first of all, the outer
layer of skin. I can blow this up a little bit too, make it a little easier to see.

Okay, so we've got this outer layer of skin first, right? Also known as epithelial tissue. It's a
fancy name for skin. We've got, typically in the body when it's being illustrated, nerves are
yellow. Arteries are, or arterioles are red, and veins and venules are blue. And that has to do
with the oxygenation making things more red because the iron content and the blue because
we don't have as much oxygen because that's venous blood.

And again, the nerves in the yellow, as you can see, there are several groups here. The pink
here is the skeletal muscle. This is superficial fascia that's and actually there's a, they're not
telling you this, but there's some adipose, there's some fat in there as well. And and then we've
got some deep fascia, which are these septa, these lines in between.

These are bones. This is the tibia, the big leg bone, the shin bone, and this is the fibula, the little
bone next to it. And so you can see, oh and periosteum is another layer, it's a layer around the
outside of a bone, another membrane that surrounds the bone. So there's, every single tissue
type is represented here.

Connected tissue is the fascia. The muscle tissue is there. Nerve tissue is there. And epithelial
tissue with the skin. In terms of other organs in the body, two or more kinds of tissue in are ne
necessary in each of these organs to provide a common function. In the heart, it contains all
four tissue types. The stomach, the lungs, the muscle, and the bone, they contain all four types
of tissue. So they've got membranes surrounding them that represent epithelial tissue.

There are There's different muscle tissue that is coordinated for lung function and anyway, so
all four tissue types are represented in every single one of these types of organs.

Organ Systems in the Body

As for the organ systems that we'll be studying, the systems in the body include the
integumentary system, that's your skin.

The skeletal system, again, your bones. The muscular system, that's the obvious one, the
muscles. Of course, you'll be spending most of your time working with those. The nervous
system, which is a critical element of understanding not only from the standpoint of stress and
how we react to it, but also in terms of pain and other sensation, that's important.

The endocrine system is your hormone system, we'll delve into that a bit. The cardiovascular
system, of course, is your heart and blood vessels. Lymphatic system is closely related to the
cardiovascular system, but that's your immune The

And a different type of circulation. The respiratory system, of course, is your lungs and the
ability to breathe. Your digestive system, that's obvious, your gut. Your urinary system, again,
that would encompass the bladder and the urethra and the ureter. And the reproductive
systems, we'll go into those just a little bit as well, both for men and women.

So we'll be doing an overview of a lot of those systems.

Conclusion: The Importance of Understanding the Human Body
We'll really delve deeply into the skeletal and the muscular systems. And a little bit more in the
nervous system than the other systems, just because it's so important. Alright, where are we
at? I'd like to take a break at 10. 30 unless you need a break now.

Is everybody okay for now, or do you need a break in the moment? It's about, almost 10. 10.
So another 20 minutes and I'd like to take a break, is that okay? If you need to use the
bathroom in the meantime, please feel free. Alright, an organism. This is a group of organ
systems culminating in the independent living creature that you are.

Again, assuming all organ systems are functioning properly you'll have a normally functioning
creature. But of course, oh, I guess now is a good time for a break actually. But before we do
that I just wanted to point out a couple things in your anatomy binder. First of all, there are
additional notes beyond what I might be saying.

So if there are things that, there are some things that might actually help elucidate a little more
of what I'm talking about. Each chapter has a series of review questions. That can be really
helpful. Just to make sure you understand each of the elements of the review questions. That
gives you a good sense of whether you understand what we're talking about here.

Okay. And what page are you on? I'm on page 18 for the review questions. Thank you, Nancy.
You're welcome. Thanks for asking.

And we do have a quiz for almost every class. That's a take home, typically. You can do it in
class. A lot of the time I'll give it at the beginning of class, so that if you want to fill it out in the
meantime, because I know some people like to multitask. But yeah, there'll be little quizzes, and
they're open note, open book, so don't stress about that.

It's more so that you can have a good sense of what's important to study, give you a good sense
of repetition. Just give you a chance to look at it a little bit more, and it does count towards
your grade. You want to be sure you get them all in. If you don't turn them in week to week,
know that it's okay.

You can turn, as long as they get turned in by the end of the term, we're good to go. I do
recommend turning them in as you go though, because then they get corrected and you get
them back and you can see if you made any errors and then, they can help you with your
understanding. Also, there are some coloring pages.

For those of you who like a little bit more active learning in the back, they aren't numbered, I
apologize, but they would represent pages 19 through 22. You'll see these images.
that have quite a bit of writing as well, that are coded. What I recommend is either colored
pencils or light magic, fine point magic markers. If you look at, for example, the first one that
has the organization of the body, the generalized cell, this one here that has the picture of the
cell, it has all the organelles within the cell.

And if you look You'll see organelles, and for example, the first one is the cell membrane, it's
listed as A. Okay color cell membrane in writing, say in one color, and then put the same color
around the cell membrane. Then you go to the microvilli, B, color that a different color, and
then go to the microvilli and color that the same color that you wrote B.

out for microvilli. These count for extra credit. Extra points. So if this is a good way for you to
study, it's also good for extra points. Okay? There's also some good reading here to again, add
to your study time in a different way, to hear it a different way. I recommend that. You'll see
the second of those is the terms and positions.

We haven't talked about this yet, but we will after the break. And again, this is something that's
you can color code. It's numbered, or excuse me, lettered in such a way that you can color
code. The same is true for the regions of the body. And the cavities and the linings of the body.
Okay? So I just wanted to point that out, that not only helps you with your studying, but each of
those, if you turn them in are worth extra credit.

Worth an extra point. And help you grade a little if you need it. Or not, just to help you study,
just turn them in anyways. Might as well. Okay? Alright, why don't you take a little bio break?
We have a lot of material, so make it quickly, five to ten minutes max. I prefer a five minute
break if you can do it, but if you need more time, I understand.

Are you talking about the front page or the back page? Doctor? I'm sorry? Those pictures. Are
you talking about the front or the back? Oh, are your pages two sided? Oh, mine are single
sided. So Oh, okay, yeah, so just after not tissues, so let's see, under cells, under the same
chapter here it is, over here, so here's the review questions for this chapter that we're in right
now, you were just ahead of yourself a little bit, and so I'm talking about this.

and the next three pages. That's the, this is the cell one. And then the next one has the
positions and directions. Alright, and this one with the different regions of the body. And then,
this one here. Okay? Each of those is potentially not only a good thing for helping you study,
but also worth some extra points if you do the coloring thing.

Okay? Thank you. And you don't have to, but, it is a good way to study. For some people, at
least. Especially if you're very hands on or very visual.

I don't know if it's big enough to crack the plate to hold it.