2. Homeostasis Homeostasis is your bodies ability to maintain internal conditions in the body. The two most important systems in maintaining homeostasis are the nervous and the endocrine systems.

3. Homeostasis In The Body

4. Digestive System

5. The digestive system contributes to homeostasis by regulating the intake of nutrients, breaking down food particles, and absorbing them into the cells. It also helps regulate the water intake.

6. Matter moves into the body and continues down a chain of organs that break down food completely before it leaves the body. Helpful bacteria also are used to maintain homeostasis in the digestive system. – These bacteria aid in digestion, to help produce vitamins, help formulate waste matter, and guard against harmful bacteria.

7. Digestion involves mixing food with juices moving it through the digestive tract and breaking it down into smaller ones. Digestion begins in the mouth when you chew and swallow, and is completed in the smaller intestine.

9. Endocrine System Many endocrine glands are connected to nervous system control centers by homeostatic feedback mechanisms. The two types of feedback mechanisms are negative and positive feedback. Negative feedback decreases the difference from an ideal normal value, so it’s important in maintaining homeostasis. Almost all of the endocrine glands are under control of negative feedback mechanisms.

10. Negative mechanisms are like a thermostat. When the temperature rises (difference from the ideal normal level), the thermostat senses the change and triggers the air conditioning to cool the house. When the temperature reaches its thermostat setting (ideal normal value), the AC turns off again.

11. Something like this also occurs in your body. An example of negative feedback is the control of the blood calcium level. Parathyroid glands produce parathyroid hormone, which is what regulates the blood calcium amount. If the calcium decreases, the parathyroid glands detect the decrease and secrete more parathyroid hormone. This hormone stimulates calcium release from the bones while increasing the calcium uptake into the bloodstream from the collecting tubules found in the kidneys. On the other hand, if the blood calcium amount increases too much, the parathyroid glands reduce hormone production. Both of these responses are examples of negative feedback because the effects are negative (opposite to the stimulus) in both cases.

12. Positive Feedback Positive feedback mechanisms control events in the body that can be out of control and don’t require constant adjustment. In positive mechanisms, the initial stimulus is promoted rather than neglected. Positive feedback is rarely used to maintain homeostasis, because it increases the difference from the ideal normal level instead of keeping it the same.

13. Positive Feedback An example of positive feedback is in childbirth, when the body needs to produce more hormones than usual.

16. Urinary System The urinary system contains the kidneys, which are the organs of homeostasis mostly because they control the electrolyte balance in the blood, water retention in the body, and that they also play a role in maintaining blood pressure.