Skin+-+CS

= = =Introduction= toc Just like a celebrity, walking around with a bodyguard, protecting them from any danger or harmful object, our skin protects us, it’s the barrier of the body. Same as a bodyguard who has his own equipment to keep their celebrity safe, the skin has structures to hold in all of the important parts of it. We want to take care of our skin, same as a bodyguard wants to protect their celebrity, we need to take care of ourselves and our skin, because if we don’t wear sunscreen and prevent cancer, our bodyguard may not be here anymore.

=The Epidermis Function=

We all have skin, whether it’s light or dark, soft or rigid. But what exactly does skin do for us? Skin protects any germs and toxins from entering your body and bloodstream. If we didn’t have skin, we would all be skeletons with organs falling out. Skin is the largest organ in your body, and one of the most important.The **epidermis** is the top layer of your skin, it’s the only part we really know about because we can see it. All of the skin cells on your epidermis are dead. You may ask, why are we protected by our epidermis if all of the skin cells are dead? Dead skin cells protect us is because if they were alive, we wouldn’t be able to touch or lightly scratch ourselves without great deals of pain. Another job of the skin is to maintain temperature. This means that the epidermis produces perspiration throughout the body because of the sweat glands in the second layer of the skin, the **dermis**. ( Padilla et al 31). Also, the skin helps eliminate waste when ever your body perspires. The skin also gathers information. “Think of it this way, pinch your skin and then press down. You just tested some of your nerves” (Padilla et al 31).Whenever you get a cut, feel pain or pressure, this means the skin has gathered some information so it knows you got hurt in some way. Lastly, the skin produces Vitamin D, which is the sunlight we absorb. This helps the cells in your digestive system absorb calcium in food. It only takes a few minutes to gather provide you with enough sunlight for one day (Padilla et al 31).Overall, the epidermis job is to keep any germs and toxins from entering your body and is the barrier protecting you and your organs. The skin has structures to help it perform its function, but what are they?

media type="youtube" key="yKAzVC0WcmI" width="448" height="251" =The Structure of the Skin=

Like a person, the skin has a very distinct structure. For example, the epidermis is the top layer of the skin. Like I said before, all of the cells in the epidermal layer are dead! The skin cells start deep in the dermis as they clone themselves. As they mature they move up as the new ones form below. After about two weeks, they die and become the epidermal layer (Teenhealthandwellness). Skin cells shed any time you rub your hands together. As they do shed, the new ones will form. The skin only has the two layers, epidermis and dermis. The epidermis contains hair, pores, and sweat droplets, and has the same thickness of a piece of paper.The dermis contains the sweat gland, nerves, blood vessels, hair follicles and the melanin. (Padilla et al 32)The melanin is the gland that gives the skin color. When the melanin is exposed to sunlight, the color of your skin darkens. That is why in the summer, we get tan and our skin color gets darker. Also, the dermis contains two major proteins, the elastin and the collagen. The elastin allows the skin to be flexible and gives it the flexibility it needs. The collagen gives the skin shape and strength. The skin has these structures to help carry out its function. Yes these structures are important, but how do we keep them safe?



=Skin Cancer to the Epidermis=

We all have been there, a long day at the beach and you haven’t been in the water for a little while, your hot and all of the sunscreen you put on an hour ago is long gone in the ocean, and we don’t want to get up as we’re so relaxed from the noise of the waves crashing in front of us. But, before we know it, when we wake up from this daydream, were burnt to a crisp, your skin hurts and is always hot, and there is really nothing we can do to treat it. We wear sunscreen to prevent this and if we avoid it long enough, it may result into skin cancer. Normally, cells all grow normally, very strictly and all the same. Chemical signals will alarm these cells when to stop growing, when a cancerous cell starts to grow, it doesn’t listen to this message and just keeps growing (teenhealthandwellness). They can grow very out of control. This bunch of abnormal (cancer) cells could grow enough to turn into a form of a tumor or mass. Also, since they never really stop growing, it is very easy for the cancer to spread to other organs in your body. There are many different types of skin cancer but the deadliest and dangerous one is called Melanoma. Melanoma is the tumors risen from melanocytes, which are parts of the melanin. It will start out as a single mole, but once it gets serious it will spread and become very big. People can get this disease because of not using sunscreen (sunbathing) or tanning beds. The melanoma cases have jumped 200% since 1975 (teenhealthandwellness)T, that very high! Normally, there are about 9,000 deaths a year and about 70,000 people are diagnoses a year. There are many other types of skin cancer that are low to moderate risk of death, but melanoma is a game changer, and that is why it is so important to keep applying sunscreen. We should not take our skin for granted.

[|Here is a link] for further information on skin cancer.

=Conclusion=

To conclude, our skin is just like our body guard, protecting us from any outside danger and keeping all our organs inside. Our skin has structures like the epidermis and the melanin inside the second layer of the skin called the dermis. Although the skin is one of the largest and most needed organs in your body, it can get hurt, whether it’s cancer/Melanoma or just a simple wound or scratch. It’s our job to keep it safe and functioning.



=References=

Works Cited Glass, Susan. Cells. Logan, Perfection Learning, 2005. Padilla, Michael J., et al. Prentice Hall Science Explorer: Human Biology and Health. Needham, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005. “Skin.” BrainPOP, www.brainpop.com/health/bodysystems/skin/. Accessed 31 Jan. 2017. “Skin Cancer.” Teen Health and Wellness, Rosen Publishing, June 2015, www.teenhealthandwellness.com/article/567/skin-cancer. Accessed 31 Jan. 2017.

“What Is Skin? Layers of Human Skin.” Youtube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKAzVC0WcmI. Accessed 3 Feb. 2017.