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Human physiology, hazards and health risks
Published in Stephen Battersby, Clay's Handbook of Environmental Health, 2023
Revati Phalkey, Naima Bradley, Alec Dobney, Virginia Murray, John O’Hagan, Mutahir Ahmad, Darren Addison, Tracy Gooding, Timothy W Gant, Emma L Marczylo, Caryn L Cox
Immune responses – Immunology is the study of the physiological responses by which the body destroys or neutralises foreign matter or xenobiotics, living and non-living, as well as cells of its own that have become altered in certain ways. The ability of the immune response to protect us against bacteria, fungi, viruses and other parasites and other foreign matter is one of the most important defence mechanisms of the human body.
Development and Composition of the Human Microbiome from Birth
Published in Nwadiuto (Diuto) Esiobu, James Chukwuma Ogbonna, Charles Oluwaseun Adetunji, Olawole O. Obembe, Ifeoma Maureen Ezeonu, Abdulrazak B. Ibrahim, Benjamin Ewa Ubi, Microbiomes and Emerging Applications, 2022
Toochukwu E. Ogbulie, Nwadiuto (Diuto) Esiobu, Muinah Fowora
In the human body, oxygen and carbon dioxide gas exchange occurs in the lungs; hence, its functionality maintenance is critical to human health. Thus, damage to the lungs can result from a wide range of causes which can impair its function representing a major indicator of mortality. Although the upper and lower respiratory systems possess preventive mechanisms against microbes such as removal of microbes from the respiratory system by the use of the goblet cells’ mucous to trap microbes through continuous moving of the ciliated epithelial cells and bactericidal effect using lysozyme enzyme by nasal mucus, it still has its own set of microbiota. Reports have shown the presence of the normal flora of the respiratory tract to respectively belong to the following bacterial and fungal genera; Prevotella sp., Sphingomonas sp., Pseudomonas sp., Acinetobacter sp., Fusobacterium sp., Megasphaera sp., Veillonella sp., Staphylococcus aureus, Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pyogenes, Neisseria meningitidis, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Candida sp., Malassezia sp., Neosartorya sp., Saccharomyces sp., and Aspergillus sp., some of which can cause serious opportunistic infections especially in immuno-compromised individuals.
Lung Segmentation and Nodule Detection in 3D Medical Images Using Convolution Neural Network
Published in Rohit Raja, Sandeep Kumar, Shilpa Rani, K. Ramya Laxmi, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in 2D/3D Medical Image Processing, 2020
Rohit Raja, Sandeep Kumar, Shilpa Rani, K. Ramya Laxmi
Lungs are the most important organs for our cellular respiration system which is situated in the chest cavity. Lungs are a set of spongy organs which allow us to breathe properly. Lungs are responsible for providing oxygen to the human body and also expel carbon dioxide from the body. The exchange of these gases is called respiration. In today’s lifestyle lung cancer is a common disease and it’s also a reason of a greater number of deaths around the world. Lung cancer is a deadly cancer other than breast cancer, bone cancer etc. Smoking is a common cause of lung cancer but people who don’t have smoking habits can also get lung cancer. However, chances are ten times less for a nonsmoker than for a person who smokes. Diagnosing the lung tumor at an early stage is a very difficult task. Yet if it is detected in the last stage, the only option is to remove the cancerous lung. Therefore, it is necessary that it should be detected in the early stage or first stage of the cancer.There are different ways of detecting the cancerous tumor such as CT scan, MRI, PET and so on etc[1].
Effects of long-term high-level lead exposure on the immune function of workers
Published in Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health, 2022
Jianrui Dou, Le Zhou, Yi Zhao, Wu Jin, Huanxi Shen, Feng Zhang
Repeated and even long-term Pb exposures can cause chronic subclinical damage and unpredictable harm that will likely not clinically manifest until later in life. Therefore, the identification of biomarkers that can reflect on these health hazards would help improve the efficacy of a workplace safety assessment. The immune system is of extreme importance for the human body and is essential to defend a host against invasion by pathogens. The immune system is being increasingly seen as a good source of such biomarkers in that it is often affected during the early stages of exposure to toxicants, even when other body systems and functions do not show overt damage.2,3 In the case of Pb, the toxicity caused to the nervous system and the digestive system is well recognized, but only more recently have reports on Pb-induced damage to the immune system become more frequent.
Methods of energy generation from the human body: a literature review
Published in Journal of Medical Engineering & Technology, 2019
Jamal Al-Nabulsi, Sameh El-Sharo, Nicole Salawy, Halah Al-Doori
The human body converts chemical energy from food consumed into both heat and work to sustain metabolism with variations depending on the environment and daily activities. This heat can be used to produce electrical power that can be utilised to power various medical devices. The human body has a temperature of about 37 °C, with generation of heat related to metabolic activity. This heat is dissipated in six basic ways: (i) through the skin, radiating heat through heat convection, (ii) evaporation (including insensible perspiration), (iii) sweating, (iv) forced heat and mass transfer in lungs, (v) conduction to surrounding liquids (while swimming or taking a shower) and (vi) food and water intake followed by their removal from the body after digestion [11]. When a thermoelectric energy scavenger was experimentally placed on different parts of the human body, these showed different thermal properties depending on the thermal resistance of the attached thermoelectric generator (TEG); TEGs have the ability to generate electric power based on temperature difference. To attain maximum power from wearable self-powered TEGs, thermal properties and thermal resistance should be taken into consideration during device optimisation [12]. Experiments using an optimised TEG on different body parts showed that the highest power generation occurs from the upper arm, with the wrist and chest producing the lowest power [13]. An early invention utilising the thermal energy produced by the human body is the thermoelectric powered wristwatch, which uses micro-thermoelectric modules as an energy source for wristwatches [14].
A review of wound dressing materials and its fabrication methods: emphasis on three-dimensional printed dressings
Published in Journal of Medical Engineering & Technology, 2022
S. Pravin Kumar, Yuvasri Asokan, Keerthana Balamurugan, B. Harsha
Wound healing is the process where the body replaces and rejuvenates the function of damaged tissues [13]. It progressively happens through coagulation, inflammation, matrix synthesis and deposition, angiogenesis, fibroplasia, epithelialization, contraction, remodelling, and scar maturation [14]. An open wound can take a longer time to heal than a closed wound [15]. The human body heals a wound in different phases through tissue regeneration and growth progress. These four phases must occur in proper sequence for the wound to heal successfully. Hemostasis, defensive, proliferation, and maturation are the four phases that occur in wound healing (Figure 2(a–d)).