Education for children

How do our bodies really work?

For something to be alive, like you and me, it must have some specific traits. These are true for all living things, even plants! These traits include being organized, responding to their surroundings, changing, growing, keeping a balance, having DNA, and using energy!

Every part of your body is made up of cells. In the different parts of your body, for example your heart or your brain, the cells have different jobs that they do. The heart cells help pump blood throughout your body, while nerve cells send messages. The body is like a large town filled with different people with different jobs. The cells work together in order to make you, you!

The brain is a super important part of the body! It allows you to understand the world around you. The brain is sort of like the principal, telling all the other parts of the body what they need to be doing. But it doesn't do it alone. The principal needs help from the teachers to make sure everything that needs to get done actually happens. In the brain and throughout the body, there are special cells called nerve cells. Nerve cells act as the teachers, helping spread those messages. These cells are what allow you to have your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. They carry messages from all over your body to the brain, and the brain tells you what to do.

Using your senses, you are able to work with your environment. Your senses are what allows you to do so many things. For example, your senses help you feel when something is too hot, or hear when something is close or far from you.

Another super important thing your body does for you is make changes to make sure you feel and live your best. These changes happen in your body , and your body then learns to get even better at what it's already doing.

Now, your body feeling "its best" is called homeostasis. It sounds complicated, but it really isn't! Your body works together to make sure you're feeling great, and if something is wrong, to get you back to normal. Kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, trying to get the porridge "just right"! For example if you have a fever, your body's temperature is higher than usual. Sometimes, you might make you sweat to help your body temperature cool down. In a school, the students might be playing nicely, but if there is an issue the teacher or principal might need to step in and help. In this case, your brain is the principle. It will alert the body if it needs to do something to fix something.

Whenever you eat, your body uses the food to create energy. It's important to eat all different types of food like fruits, veggies, carbs (fuel), and protein to make sure that you get enough nutrients. Sometimes, if you eat certain foods with more types of fuel than others, you'll feel differently. For example, after you eat lots of ice cream, you're going to have a lot of energy because of the sugar. Sugar rush doesn't last forever because homeostasis helps make sure the amount of sugar in your body goes back to normal!

Your body makes more and more cells, allowing you to grow. Kids and adults both make more cells. If you get a cut and you start to bleed, your body creates new cells to make a fix; they're not just for growing big and strong! It's kind of like a factory, making more cells as soon as needed.

Lastly, your body has secret instructions known as DNA which make you who you are! DNA tells your body how much to grow and sleep, and even can affect what you'll look like. DNA is kind of like a hidden note that only you can read.

What is cancer? Cancer can sound scary, but learning about it can help us understand it better. Your DNA is like a set of secret instructions that helps your body work. It helps decide many things about you, like how tall you might grow. One of its important jobs is to help tell your cells when to grow and when to stop. When DNA gets "messed up," the instructions can change. But DNA changes do not always cause cancer. Sometimes, they do not cause any problems at all. Think of it like a rumor at school. When a story gets passed around, it can change until it sounds very different from the original story. In a similar way, changes in DNA can sometimes cause cells to stop following the normal rules for growing. These cells may keep making more cells when they should stop. Sometimes, this can form a tumor, which is a clump of cells. But not all tumors are cancer! Benign tumors (do not spread) are not cancer, while malignant tumors (do spread) are cancer. Both are clumps of cells, but they behave in different ways. Cancer cells can grow into nearby parts of the body and sometimes spread to other places. When cancer spreads, it can be harder to treat. This is when different kinds of care can help! Doctors and scientists are always learning more about cancer and finding better ways to treat it! Like other cells, cancer cells need nutrients to grow and survive. Some cancer cells use nutrients differently from healthy cells. Doctors learn all about these differences to help find treatments. This is one of the many things they learn about to keep people safe and healthy! Doctors have many different ways to treat cancer, and the best treatment depends on the type.

What are some of the treatments for cancer?

Scientists and doctors have found so many different ways to help people with cancer, and they are continuing to find new ways all the time! In fact, doctors have found that different treatments work for different types of cancer.

Many people have heard of chemotherapy, or chemo, but not many know what it is. Chemo is used to fight the cells in your body, making sure to destroy all the bad cells. Unfortunately, chemo does not know the difference between a healthy cell versus an unhealthy cell. Because of this, chemo gets rid of some of the good cells as well. This might cause someone to lose their hair or to feel sick.

Radiation therapy is another form of treatment. Radiation isn't just used in helping treat people with cancer, it has so many different jobs! An X-Ray is a form of radiation; it shows what your bones look like. Different types of radiation are used for different things. For example, CT scans and MRI show what different parts of your body look like such as your brain or muscles. These are just some of the more common ones. For cancer treatment specifically, doctors use special rays that are aimed at the cancer to damage the cancer cells. These rays help fight cancer without having super big effects on the rest of the body!

Lastly, some people with healthy cells can donate them to people with unhealthy cells. This is called a transplant. People with cancer often get a stem cell or bone marrow transplant, which gives them special cells that help their body make different types of blood cells. They act like Legos, or building blocks, that help make a tower. In order to get a transplant, people have to make sure that certain parts of their body, like their blood, match up with the donor's. Sometimes, it's hard to find a match which is why it can take a long time to get a transplant. Before people get a transplant, they often go through chemo. Chemo helps make room for all the new and healthy cells while getting rid of the old, bad ones! Some people feel sick or tired after a transplant because sometimes the body and the new cells have trouble working together. This is kind of like when new students join a classroom and everyone has to learn how to work together. Sometimes, the body has trouble accepting the new cells, just like how it might take time for new students to feel comfortable in their classroom. Over time, the new cells can start making more blood cells, just like how students become part of their new classroom.