Monday Wellness Reflection

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WWzaWb2RQ7YcG55BDnSo3QJGA0eIsu8jf6HVvTlWeTI/edit#slide=id.p

Eric and I did our presentation on sitting because we both have some experience with our Asian parents criticizing our long periods of sitting. I personally chose it and made the decision for us because my mom always has information from the internet to share with me about how detrimental sitting for long periods of time was. I knew that I was sitting around a lot, but this was only because of the work I have to do. With college apps, homework, and tests, I was pretty much constantly at my desk without much getting up. Hours go by as I just sit and try to concentrate, and I know there is something wrong with my situation. Fortunately, I was able to do some firsthand research through this project and personally learn what I was doing to myself every day. One of the most interesting things that I learned about was about how bad posture affects your circulatory system. I actually did not know much about this, as I thought posture only affected the skeletal system. When we found out that bad posture and minimal movement could actually slow your blood flow and increase the probability of atherosclerosis and other cardiac diseases, this was pretty shocking to me, as I realized that I could potentially have these increased risks and beginnings of heart unhealthiness. I feel like this definitely does not affect me only, as probably millions of others are out there just sitting around at work or in school or at home. I feel like this and sleep debt are probably the biggest issues we have in America currently because of how lucky we are. We can actually afford to be just sitting around, and therefore we also carelessly throw away our time to rest and regenerate. Both of these conditions are common and increase risks for diabetes and heart diseases, which are also coincidentally one of the highest causes of death in America. Orthopedics are definitely not the correct answer, and I think everybody needs to manage their time to fit in exercise and sleep, which are critical pillars of our health. With correct time management, everybody can be healthier and hopefully happier, while living longer.
Since Eric and I do live rather close, it wasn't cumbersome for me to go over to his house and work, but we definitely did not goof around. We spent quite a number of hours looking for information and finding solutions to this common unhealthy behavior. While we probably could have spent even more time to search for further details, we were both stacked with a lot of stuff. I say stuff because there are seriously so many things going on, from college counselors to interviews. I was actually absent on the Thursday before our Monday Wellness because I had to fly to Pennsylvania for an interview, and I feel like we really made the best of our situation. Fortunately, we spaced our time rather well so we didn't have to scramble at the last second, but it was still nerve-racking when I wasn't around to talk to you about our presentation. Thank you so much for just providing us with this opportunity and just teaching us so much about our own health and really just what needs change in our society and how we can help others and make a difference.

Sheep Heart Dissection Video Tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gussycC6joU

Sheep Heart Dissection

What is the purpose of the pericardium?

The pericardium serves as protection for the heart, as it is a two layer liquid filled sac that surrounds the entire muscle. It protects the heart from infection and over-expansion when there is an increase in blood volume. It also serves as a container for the heart.

How do arteries differ from veins in their structure?

Arteries have thicker walls than veins do because there is a higher blood pressure in arteries than in veins, as the blood is being pumped from the heart to the body, and not vice versa.

What function does the auricle serve?

The auricle collects blood in a pouch before transferring it to the left or right ventricle, depending on the auricle(left or right).

What differences between the external structures of the atria and the ventricles do you observe?

Atria is smaller than the ventricles, and there are thicker walls in the ventricles. There is more fat near the atrium.

Picture: Tricuspid valve, including chordate tendinae and the papillary muscle.

Why is the "anchoring" of the heart valves by the chordate tendinae and the papillary muscle important to heart function?
The anchoring of the heart valves by the chordate tendinae and the papillary muscle is important because it keeps the bicuspid valve and the tricuspid valve in place, so blood flow will remain in one direction. 

Picture: Bicuspid Valve

What is the function of the semi-lunar valves?
The semi-lunar valves prevent incorrect blood flow within the heart.

If the valve disease occurs on the right side of the heart, it results in swelling in the feet and ankles. Why might this happen?
It may have an impact on the inferior vena cava, which sends blood to the bottom half of the body, which includes the feet and ankles.

If the valve disease occurs on the left side of the heart, what complications would you expect to see?
Blood flow between the lungs and the left atrium could be altered. The flow of oxygenated blood to the rest of the heart would be interrupted, and that could result in lack of muscle response in certain areas.

Picture: Left Ventricle

Describe how the left and right sides of the heart differ from each other.
The left side of the heart is in charge of oxygenated blood, while the right side takes care of the oxygen poor blood. 

Picture: Interior of cross section

Unit 3 Reflection

This unit was all about the cardiovascular system, which involves the numerous information regarding the heart and the blood vessels which essentially give us life. In the beginning, we learned about blood pressure and heart rate, while learning the inside of the heart muscle. We also learned where blood went to and from the heart and the rest of the body. Atherosclerosis and aneurysms are examples of unhealthy blood vessels primarily based on the diet of the individual. Less unsaturated fats, less overcarbsumption, less sodium, and more exercise are difficult but healthy options to maintain a healthy cardiovascular system. I was really fascinated and frankly scared about the risks of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, and the causes seemed so difficult to avoid. I have maintained my stress levels, but my sleeping habits are difficult to amend as college apps and numerous homework assignments, tests, and other activities take up the majority of my time awake during the day. I have been eating less, as I recognized that my old habits of diet were excessive in calories and carbs. Snacks for me are mostly fruits now. My cortisol levels may be unhealthy because of my sleep debt, but I will hopefully be able to shake off my workload soon to sleep more. This unit has taught me a lot about arteries and veins, and although I seemed to have grasped their concepts, I think, if I remember correctly, I had difficulty with different functions of specifics like the separation of oxygen rich and oxygen poor blood. I probably need to test myself more, as my studying habits occasionally drift to just going over notes. Self testing is really important, as I remember from one of the do-nows in, I believe, this unit. I will do more of it to score higher on tests and overall retain all the information, as it is actually invaluable knowledge that directly applies to me and my lifestyle. I can become a healthier person and help others to become healthier with this wisdom of cardiovascular health. Type 2 diabetes and obesity are real problems these days, and I want to make an impact on this common unhealthy occurrence. 

Snack Time~

1) Snack time can be every day as long you keep it under 200 calories and it isn't composed of unhealthy and non-nutritious foods.
2) Healthy snacks- nutrients, unsaturated fats, proteins, low amount of carbs and sugars
3) Stay away from foods high in added sugars, preservatives, carbs, and processed foods. Keep it under 200 calories, avoid food with high sodium.
Apples-vitamins, heart, nutritious
Peanut butter-vitamins, heart, protein
Almonds-lower risk of cancer, heart disease, protein
Liked that we made food! Big fan of peanut butter, and the one we used wasn't too sweet, but it also wasn't salted or anything.
Good job Alexandria and Simrun!

Blood Pressure Lab

Analysis Questions
1) Compare the systole to diastole.
Systolic pressure is the pressure when the heart contracts. Diastolic pressure is the pressure when the heart relaxes.
2) What equipment is used to measure heart rate? To measure blood pressure?
To measure heart rate, all you have to do is use your fingers. There are seven pulse points that you can use to measure heart rate, but carotid arteries and radial arteries are the easiest places to measure it. Blood pressure can be measured with a sphygmomanometer.
3) Why is using your thumb to measure pulse not ideal?
The thumb also has its own pulse, so using it to measure heart rate in one of the seven pulse points could be confusing.

4) In your own words, describe how to use a blood pressure cuff (sphygomomanometer).
Place cuff on arm, put head of stethoscope above the crease of the elbow, inflate cuff to around 150 mmHg, then open the valve slightly to let air out. When you hear sounds from the stethoscope, the value on the gauge is the systolic blood pressure. When the sounds stop, the gauge reading is the diastolic blood pressure.

In my first test, I had 115 systole to 80 diastole.
In my second test, I had 120 systole to 75 diastole.

Unit 2 Reflection

I really liked what our group came up with in the very beginning when we were asked about the definition of health. It's quite simply, if you keep it simple. Health has many subcategories to be filled to be "sufficient" and "healthy," but I think if you can't find happiness in the things you do, in every aspect of your life, it's going to be really hard to be healthy, physically or mentally. In this retrospect, I'm super healthy. I'm quite the happy person. To me, there is really nothing to be sad about. Nothing can drag me down. Life is too short to care enough to get hurt. But I digress. Not only our school, but according to our psychology class, the majority of teenagers living in the United States aren't the healthiest. Whether it's diet, exercise, sleep, or all of the above, many adolescents aren't doing enough to maintain their health. There are many factors to this, one huge component being school, but in reality, it's procrastination that pulls us down in the dumps regarding our physical health. 

Themes from this unit include the pillars of health: nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress, and social life. I learned a lot from every section, but what I found interesting as I looked back to my previous biology classes were how little they talked about sleep. Of course I knew about how bad it was to get little of it, but learning about the hormones that affected my weight and other detrimental effects of racking up a sleep debt was really eye opening. There was actually one period I missed because I had so little sleep that I overslept a little too much, which caused a huge ripple effect. I ended up missing a class in which we did labs that would fit together with the nutritional analysis, which I could only partially complete because of many difficulties. I really liked the sleep diary, and I actually think I will probably continue to use one to see if my averages per week can go up to seriously get more sleep and stay awake during the day. I don't have a link, but I watched a video in psychology that was called Inside the Teenager Brain or something similar. It talked about the different mood swings, but it also talked about sleep deprivation. Kids are really struggling with getting their work done in time to sleep earlier, and it is something that is definitely difficult to address, as kids really need to grow up themselves to get their work done and stay healthy at the same time. This time of our life has huge impact in our future years, and it's a shame how hard it is to stay healthy now. 

Health Collage

When our group was asked to define health, we had several answers that we individually came up with. However, when we came together to decide on one definition, we settled with a single word: happiness. I really enjoyed this particular thinking, right or wrong as it may be. Mental health really affects overall health, I believe. There is no point in exercising and forcing yourself on a diet if you cannot be happy with your life. Everybody is unique, and it's a shame that some don't realize that and take advantage of the fact that they're alive. Along this note, I'm a rather positive person, so I would say that my strongest pillar for my health is the fact that I worry so little. My stress levels are relatively controlled, and I never, ever let my anxiety control me. I can be emotional, but that does not change my positive outlook on life and my mental state. Unfortunately, this really affects one of my other pillars. Not worrying sometimes makes me a little slow regarding my efficiency with work, and I end up sleeping very late. My sleep schedule is not healthy, and I have had many many microsleeps during school, and sadly behind the wheel in the past. I definitely need to work on that. I have learned a lot about health, especially regarding nutrition and functions of certain nutrients, but I'd think it be nice to learn more about exercise, and the different types of exercise.

Unit 1 Reflection

This unit was all about introducing us to anatomy and physiology, as well as giving us some basic information on cells and histology. Some essential themes were:
Form fits function.
Anatomical Directional Terms help locate a specific place on the body.
Four macromolecules: carbohydrates, proteins, nucleic acids, lipids
Four tissues- epithelial, connective, muscle, nervous
Extracellular matrix- Fibroblasts, Macrophages, Adipocytes, Mast cells
Inflammation- neural response to damage, allergies
I had a lot of prior background knowledge, having taken freshman biology and AP biology, but the specificity on the tissues is a new page I have turned. I took in everything rather smoothly, and I can safely say I understand everything well. In the tissue lab, I was able to take a closer look at a lot of cells from all the types of tissues, and I got a tidbit of an experience of what it's like for a scientist who works with human biological cells and tissues. This can easily be applied to medical research and developing cures. It's obvious that it can be used for diagnoses, and being able to identify harmful things will definitely be something interesting if we were to go into that in the future. The preface is really nice though. A histologist is actually rather important in the medical field, and along with some computer work, there's also a lot of hands on stuff going on. It's awesome that we could get a taste of what it's like at such a young age. This unit has been a great start to a year that I am looking forward to!
http://learningpath.org/articles/Histologist_Career_Info.html

Tissue Lab Relate and Review

The tissue lab was all about exploring different types of cells and tissues through microscopes. After spending a few days learning about histology, it was great to see what we learned about in real life (aside from the skin we see everyday). Using optical microscopes, we took a look at all four types of tissues. They really reflected what we learned what we learned about in class, especially for the slide labeled "nerve human c.s. and l.s" and "skeletal muscle." For the nervous tissue one, the axons were clearly seen in the picture, and the fibers were also very visible. It was easy to tell that it was a nervous cell because only those have axons to receive and send signals. Additionally, the skeletal muscle slide had dots that stuck out from the picture which can be easily identified as nuclei. It also had the striations which made it very obvious that it was a skeletal muscle. Every slide that we looked at was different than the others just because of how specific the shapes were to their specific tissue type. The axons were an excellent example, because they have a specific function, and they could be identified in the lenses to indicate that what we were looking at was a nervous tissue cell. The skeletal muscle was also good because of the striations that were evident, and could be related to the voluntary movements that we can control.

Rods and Cones

Rods and Cones
          Rods and cones are the photoreceptors located in eyes, more specifically, retinas, the innermost layer of tissue. There are around 120 million rods located in the human retina, while there are only 6-7 million cones. Rods are more sensitive to light, so they are responsible for vision when there is little to no light. Cones, however, can detect color and shapes and sizes of objects under high light conditions. The ability to detect a shape is called spatial acuity. Therefore, rods have a low spatial acuity while cones have a high spatial acuity. The central fovea is the location of most cones, and only cones are allowed to be there. Rods are more numerous than cones in the periphery of the retina, which provides peripheral vision. Since rods are also better than cones at sensing motion, humans are able to detect motion through peripheral vision. Dimmer objects also appear more visible through peripheral vision because of the rods located in the periphery. These cells are comparable to neurons as their shapes resemble the long shape and they also have the synaptic terminal on the inner side of the cell. Their mitochondria and nucleus are located in the inner segment, and all their organelles are like the eukaryotic cells located in the human nervous system.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/rodcone.html
http://www.cis.rit.edu/people/faculty/montag/vandplite/pages/chap_9/ch9p1.html
https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/retina.html


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Cone_cell_en.png

http://tridentmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/eye-diagram.jpg

Lab: Sweetness in Carbs

          My partner and I began this experiment by writing down the structures and functions of 8 different carbohydrates- sucrose, glucose, fructose, galactose, maltose, lactose, starch, and cellulose. After we recorded the information regarding these carbs, we began the taste test. 
           Our hypothesis was that sucrose, glucose, fructose, galactose, and maltose would all taste sweet, while lactose, starch, and cellulose would not taste sweet. 
         From the small containers we were given, we used a spoon to dish out every carb into different locations on a paper towel with labels for our reference. When every carbohydrate was on the matting, we used the tips of our fingers to catch a small amount of each substance and taste it. The data we recorded included their names, their degree of sweetness from 0-200, their color, and their texture. 
         Sucrose, glucose, and fructose were granular and generally sweeter than the rest. Galactose, maltose, lactose, starch, and cellulose could be best described as powder in physical texture. The monosaccharides seemed to be sweeter, excluding galactose, and the disaccharides and polysaccharides were not very sweet at all, excluding sucrose. In general, the less rings in the structure of the carbohydrate, the sweeter it was. 
         This made a lot of sense because I find table sugar and fruits and juices to be sweeter than cornstarch and vegetables and other staple food items like potatoes.
         The tongue and the nose play key roles in allowing us to taste food. On the tongue, there are a lot of bumps called pappilae, and most of them have taste buds. These taste buds have sensitive microscopic hairs called microvilli. Every hair sends a message to the brain like a neuron when it tastes different tastes. The average person has around 10,000 taste buds, and although they are supposed to be replaced every 2 weeks, sometimes, they aren't. As people age, they lose taste buds, so that is one reason why people in our class could have had varying opinions on the sweetness levels of the samples in this lab. In our class, there are probably people with ages ranging from 15 to 18. In addition, the nose has olfactory receptors which are similar to the microvilli. When we eat, chemicals travel up our nose to contribute to our determination of each taste. However, if you are sick and your nose is plugged, the chemicals don't reach these receptors and that can also affect how you distinguish taste. Therefore, if there were people sick on the day of the lab, they could have also had different results on the sweetness levels. 

http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/taste_buds.html