Thanks For Your Help, Technology!

Evaluate the importance of various technologies, including Canadian contributions, to our understanding of internal body systems (digestive, circulatory or respiratory).

It has become clear that our bodies rely on various forms of technologies to maintain healthy. With its rapid growth, technology has been widely embraced by scientific purposes in order to gain advantage over certain health ailments, and to offer different ways of preventing diseases. Because of our modern technology, many important scientific hypotheses have been discovered to further understand the complex system of the human internal body. All in all, technology has undeniably affected our daily lives— by providing efficient and effective ways of completing tasks, changing the way we live and most importantly, saving lives.

Looking at the digestive system, which is a complex series of organs and glands which process food, many medical conditions may also arise from it. Diabetes, a disorder in which the person affected has a higher blood sugar or glucose level than the norm has been present in at least 171 million people worldwide, or 2.8% of the whole population. More than one form of diabetes exists; such as Type 1 (body fails to produce insulin, person affected must inject insulin), Type 2 (the most common form, body cells reject insulin and fails to use it) and other common types of diabetes which include gestational diabetes, congenital diabetes, cystic fibrosis-related diabetes and steroid diabetes. Diabetes is a condition that cannot be fully cured, but its symptoms can be controlled with the introduction of insulin.

Banting and Best is the name of the elementary school I live beside and these two Canadian men are also the creators of biosynthetic insulin. As a treatment for diabetes, the insulin hormone is formed in the pancreas, which controls the amount of sugar in the blood by stimulating cells, which take in and metabolize sugar levels. Being a foremost cure to diabetes, this commonly found Canadian invention was first genetically-engineered in a laboratory in 1977 and has now become the leading biosynthetic recombinant human-generated insulin used worldwide.

Moving on to the circulatory system, heart disease is commonly referred to as a group of conditions affecting the structure and functions of the heart and may have many root causes. When a person’s heart is beating irregularly or has completely stopped beating, an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) makes it possible for even non-medical personnel to restore rhythm and life back to the heart. An AED is a machine that makes monitoring heart rhythms possible and it can tell if the heart has stopped beating effectively. When needed, the machine can then deliver an electric shock to the heart to restart the heart. A known fact is that about 40,000 Canadians experience cardiac arrest every year. The Defibrillation device successfully improves survival rates by up to 30% if delivered in the first few minutes, making it possible to save lives without even being a licensed doctor.








Many people who we come in contact with in our daily lives may complain about their asthma attacks and how inconvenient it is for them to keep coughing spontaneously. Every year, about 500 Canadians die from asthma, which illustrates how immense this problem has become. Luckily, the invention of asthma inhalers, both controllers and relievers were invented which minimize the uncomfortable symptoms associated with asthma patients. Asthma controllers (which are also called “preventers”) reduce the inflammation of the airways and over time, release controller medication which will take asthma symptoms away little by little each day. It is the long-term medication used with asthma patients. Asthma relievers are very good at helping ease symptoms immediately. Relievers are only a short-term solution to breathing problems and would indicate that there is underlying inflammation present if the patient is using relievers too frequently. Joggers with asthma are often seen carrying these inhalers with them to relieve their irregular breathing while exercising. These remedies have alleviated people with respiratory deficiencies and have proved that once again, technology has contributed to the understanding of the human body.
The technology around us has certainly proved itself to be reliable and beneficial to our modern society. It has helped us understand the internal human body as well as providing various methods of maintaining our health. Humans constantly depend on technology such as insulin, the AED and asthma inhalers to move on with their daily lives even when they are faced with diseases and illnesses. Without these treatments, we wouldn’t have anything to depend on when we are diagnosed with sicknesses such as diabetes, cardiac arrest and asthma. Forms of technology aid humankind when surrounding medical purposes, such as understanding cancer with MRI scans and locating broken bones with X-Rays. When we take a look around, technology is actually all around serving us and it would be impossible to imagine living in our modern-day society without it!

Technology has not able to cure every possible disease yet, but I feel that the technicians and scientists in our society have done well so far, leading to…

The evaluation of various technologies contributing to our understanding of internal body systems: A

SOURCES:
http://www.asthma.ca/adults/treatment/howToUse.php
http://www.heartandstroke.com/site/c.ikIQLcMWJtE/b.3484045/
http://www.medicinenet.com/insulin/article.htm
http://www.diabetes.ca/about-diabetes/living/insulin/should-know/

COMMENTED ON:
http://bio4phen.blogspot.com/2010/03/technology-for-body.html
http://layathomas.blogspot.com/2010/05/road-to-technology.html