Temperature And Sugar Control In The Body

Question 1

What part of the body controls and monitors body temperature?

Answer 1

The thermoregulatory centre in the brain. This centre has receptors sensitive to the temperature of the blood.
Also temperature receptors in the skin send impulses to the thermoregulatory center, giving information about skin temperature

Question 2

What happens if the core body temperature is too high?

Answer 2

Blood vessels supplying the skin capillaries dilate so that more blood flows through the capillaries and more heat is lost
Sweat glands release more sweat school cold the body as it evaporates

Question 3

What happens if the core body temperature is too low?

Answer 3

Blood vessels supplying the skin capillaries constrict to reduce the flow of blood through the capillaries
Muscles may ‘shiver’ - their contraction needs respiration, which releases some energy to warm the body

Question 4

How is blood glucose concentration in the body monitored and controlled?

Answer 4

By the pancreas
The pancreas produces the hormone insulin, which allows the glucose to move from the blood onto the cells

A second hormone, glucagon, is produced in the pancreas when blood glucose levels fall
This causes glycogen to be converted into glucose and be released into the blood

Question 5

What is type 1 diabetes?

Answer 5

It is a disease on which a person’s blood glucose concentration may rise to a high level because the pancreas does not produce enough of the hormone insulin

Question 6

How may type 1 diabetes be controlled?

Answer 6

By careful attention to diet, exercise and by injecting insulin

Question 7

Why do we sweat and what happens to the water we loss?

Answer 7

Sweating helps to cool the body. More water is lost when it is hot, and more water has to be taken as drink or food to ba lance this loss

Question 8

What way can type 1 diabetes be cured?

Answer 8

By replacing the insulting-secreting cells

Pancreas transplants - can work but are risky, they have a limited donor supply and you still needed life-long medicine to suppress the immune system

Stem cells - can be used to grow new insulin secreting cells, but this is still being researched
The best source are embryonic stem cells, which carry their own ethical issues
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