Summary & Study Guide - The Body: A guide for Occupants

By Lee Tang

An Owner’s Manual for Everyone.

This book is a summary of “The Body: A Guide for Occupants,” by Bill Bryson.

Did you ever think you needed an owner's manual for our complex body? Our body is the product of three billion years of evolutionary tweaks. In The Body, Bill Bryson took a boring science book and turned it into an understandable book for everyone. The book guides us through the human body—how it functions, how it heals itself, and how it can fail. It leads you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular.

Read this book to better understand one of the enduring mysteries of human biology.

This guide includes:
* Book Summary—helps you understand the key concepts.
* Online Videos—cover the concepts in more depth.
Value-added from this guide:
* Save time
* Understand key concepts
* Expand your knowledge

• Language: English
• Publisher: LMT Press
• Release date: May 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781988970301

Lee Tang

Lee Tang is a retired executive of a major global insurance company. Prior to his retirement, he has worked as an actuary, a risk officer and a chief financial officer for several major insurance organizations in the United States, Canada, and Taiwan. To learn more about Lee and his work, visit his website and blog at https://lmtpress.wordpress.com. You can reach him by email at [e-mail].

Book preview

An Owner’s Manual for Everyone.

This book is a summary of The Body: A Guide for Occupants, by Bill Bryson.

Did you ever think you needed an owner's manual for our complex body? Our body is the product of three billion years of evolutionary tweaks. In The Body, Bill Bryson took a boring science book and turned it into an understandable book for everyone. The book guides us through the human body—how it functions, how it heals itself, and how it can fail. It leads you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular.

Read this book to better understand one of the enduring mysteries of human biology.

This guide includes:

Book Summary—helps you understand the key concepts.

Online Videos—cover the concepts in more depth.

Value-added from this guide:

Save time

Understand key concepts

Expand your knowledge

Important Note About This Guide

This guide is a summary and not a critique/review of the book. The summary may not be organized chapter-wise but summarizes the book’s main ideas, viewpoints, and arguments. It is NOT meant to be a replacement, but a supplement to help you understand the book’s key ideas and recommendations.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

1. How to Build a Human

2. The Outside: Skin and Hair

3. Microbial You

4. The Brain

5. The Head

6. Down the Hatch: The Mouth and Throat

7. The Heart and Blood

8. The Chemistry Department

9. In the Dissecting Room: The Skeleton

10. On the Move: Bipedalism and Exercise

11. Equilibrium

12. The Immune System

13. Deep Breath: The Lungs and Breathing

14. Good, Glorious Food

15. The Guts

16. Sleep

17. Into the Nether Regions

18. In the Beginning: Conception and Birth

19. Nerves and Pain

20. When Things Go Wrong: Diseases

21. When Things Go Very Wrong: Cancer

22. Medicine Good and Bad

23. The End

Index

About the Author

Title: Summary & Study Guide – The Body

Subtitle: A guide for Occupants

Author: Lee Tang

Publisher: LMT Press (lmtpress.wordpress.com)

Copyright © 2019 by Lee Tang

All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

First Edition: December 2019

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 9781988970301 (ebook)

ISBN 9781708094324 (paperback)

ISBN 9781078743280 (paperback)

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and author make no representations or warranties regarding the accuracy or completeness of these contents and disclaim all warranties such as warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. The website addresses in the book were correct at the time going to print. However, the publisher and author are not responsible for the content of third-party websites, which are subject to change.

To my wife, Lillian, who is the source of energy and love for everything I do, and to Andrew and Amanda: watching you grow up has been a privilege.

Chapter 1

How to Build a Human

Long ago, a high school biology teacher told us that we could buy all the chemicals that make up a human body for about $5.00. Was it true?

Many authorities have tried to compute how much it would cost in materials to build a human. At the 2013 Cambridge Science Festival, Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry determined that we needed 59 elements to construct a human being. Six of these—carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus—account for 99.1 percent of what makes us. The cost of material for building a new human being was $151,578.46 plus taxes.

But no matter what you pay, you will not create a human being from inert components. These elements are just building blocks and are not themselves alive. We need a miracle of life.

The basic unit of life is a cell which is full of stuff like ribosomes, proteins, DNA, RNA, mitochondria. None of those are themselves alive. Yet somehow when these things are put together, you have life.

Our body is a universe of 37.2 trillion cells operating in concert. The heart of the cell is the nucleus. It contains the cell’s DNA. DNA molecules are packaged into thread-like structures called chromosomes. Genes are segments of DNA that contain the code for a specific protein. You need proteins to make enzymes, hormones, and other body chemicals. The complete set of genes present in a cell is called the genome.

Only 2 percent of the human genome codes for proteins. The noncoding portion of the genome plays a role in regulating gene expression.

Humans share 99.9 percent of their DNA, and yet no two humans are alike. You have about a hundred personal mutations that don’t match the genes given to you by your parents.

Online Videos

Biology Evolution - Origin of Life

What is DNA and How Does it Work?

Chapter 2

The Outside: Skin and Hair

Our

skin is our largest barrier to pathogens and our first defense against disease. It is about two square meters (20 square feet) in size and weighs 4.5 to 7 kilograms (10 to 15 pounds). It gives us the sense of touch, temperature, and pain and produces melanin to shield us from the sun’s rays.

The skin comprises an inner layer called the dermis and an outer layer called the epidermis. The outermost surface of the epidermis is made up of dead cells, which are replaced every month. Packed into the dermis are a variety of receptors that enable us to detect touch, temperature, and vibration. Beneath the dermis is a layer of fat that the body uses to store energy, provide insulation, and attach the skin to the body.

Your skin has 3 to 5 million hair follicles and twice that number of sweat glands. The follicles spout hair and secrete sebum, which mixes with sweat to form an oily layer on the surface. This keeps skin supple and makes it inhospitable for many foreign organisms. If the follicle becomes infected and inflamed, you get pimples. Acne is a chronic, inflammatory skin condition that causes spots and pimples, especially on the face, shoulders, back, neck, chest, and upper arms.

Vitamin D is vital to health. It helps us to build strong bones and teeth, boosts the immune system, fights cancers, and nourishes the heart. We can get vitamin D in two ways—from food and through sunlight.

The body produces vitamin D when your skin is exposed to sunlight. The problem is that too much ultraviolet radiation (UV) exposure damages DNA in our cells and can cause skin cancer. Skin produces a chemical called melanin, which absorbs UV energy and diverts it away from healthy cells. Melanin is a pigment that gives human skin, hair, and eyes their color. Dark-skinned people have more melanin in their skin than light-skinned people have. Nature has selected for people with darker skin in tropical latitudes, especially in nonforested regions, where ultraviolet radiation from the sun is usually the most intense.

You may be at risk of vitamin D deficiency if you have limited exposure to sunlight, or you live in northern latitudes. People with darker skin are also at risk of deficiency because melanin reduces the skin's ability to make vitamin D in response to sunlight exposure.

Some 50 percent of people globally are vitamin D deficient. In northern latitudes, it may be as much as 90 percent. Vitamin supplements are recommended for people north of 40-degree latitude (Portland, Chicago, or New York City) during the winter months and year-round for those not getting enough midday sun, regardless of location.

Hair is unique to mammals. It provides warmth, cushioning, camouflage, shields the body from ultraviolet light, and allows members of a group to signal to each other that they