What are cells in human body and the need to know

Human needs air to breathe, it is the oxygen in air that your body really needs.  Every cell in your body needs oxygen to help it metabolize or burn the nutrients release from food for energy.  You need the food that gives you energy but oxygen is also needed to break down the food into pieces that are small enough for your cells to use and this is what is called as cellular respiration and it is the process of oxidizing food molecules like glucose to carbon dioxide and water.  The energy release is chemically trapped for use by all the energy consuming activities in the cell.  Your cells are the energy converters in your body.

As you can see all the parts of your body are made up of cells.  Your body has many different kinds of cells, though they may look different under a microscope, most cells have chemical and structural features in common.  In human there are about 200 different types of cells and within these cells you will find that there are about 20 different types of structures or organelles.

Different cells have different jobs to do and each cell has a size and shape that is suited for its job.  Cells that do the same job combine together to form certain body tissue, such as muscle, skin or bone tissue.  Groups of different types of cells make up the organs in your body such as lungs, liver and heart.  Each organ then has its own job to do, but all these organs work in synchronization to maintain your body and all the systems in your body are like members of a team whose job is to keep you alive and healthy.

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Coming back to human body – What are cells

Cells are the building blocks of all living things, large or small, plant, animal or human beings.  Water makes up about two thirds of the weight of cells.  Cells are very small and can only be seen through a microscopy.  Human being are composed of trillions of cells and each cells have their own specialized functions.  It is these cells that provide structure for our body, use the nutrients from our food and carry out important functions.  Cells are capable of reproducing themselves so each cells in your body was made from an already existing cell.  Cells group together to form tissues in our body, which in turn group together to form organ such as brain and heart and other organs.  Our cells contain function structures called organelles and the responsibilities of these organelles is to carry out tasks such as making proteins, processing chemicals and generating energy for the cell.  At the centre of the cell is nucleus and is the control room for the cell.  The genome is found within the nucleus.  A genome is an organism’s complete set of DNA, including all of it’s gene.  Each genome contains all of the information that is needed to build and maintain that organism.  In humans, a copy of the entire genome or more than 3 billion DNA base pairs is contained in all cells that have a nucleus.

All the cells have a membrane.  Cell membranes are the outer layers that hold the cells together.  The let in nutrients pass into the cell and waste products pass out.  Note that not everything can pass through a cell membrane.  What gets in and what doesn’t get depends on both the size of the particle trying to get in and the size of the opening in the membrane.

Cells also have a nucleus.  This is the cell’s control center.  Cells continually dived to make more cells for growth and repair in your body.  The nucleus contains the information that allows cells to reproduce or make more cells.  An important part of the cell is the mitochondrion.  This is the part of a cell where food and oxygen combine to make energy.

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