Homeostasis

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Not to be confused with hemostasis.
Homeostasis is the property of a system within the body of an organism in which a variable, such
as the concentration of a substance in solution, is actively regulated to remain very nearly
constant.[1]Examples of homeostasis include the regulation of the body temperature of an animal,
the pH of its extracellular fluids, or the concentrations of sodium (Na+), potassium (K+)
and calcium (Ca2+) ions as well as that of glucose in the blood plasma, despite changes in the
animal's environment, or what it has eaten, or what it is doing (for example, resting or exercising).
Each of these variables is controlled by a separate "homeostat" (or regulator), which, together,
maintain life. Homeostats are energy-consuming physiological mechanisms.[2]
The concept was described by French physiologist Claude Bernard in 1865 and the word was
coined by Walter Bradford Cannon in 1926.[2][3]
The term "cybernetics" is applied to technological control systems such as thermostats, which
function as "homeostats", but is often defined much more broadly than the biological term
"homeostasis".[4][5][6][7][8] "Homeostasis" is an almost exclusively biological term, referring to the
concepts described by Bernard and Cannon, concerning the constancy of the internal environment
(or milieu intrieur) in which the cells of the body live and survive.[1][2][3]

Contents
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1Etymology
2History
3Overview
4Controlled systems
o 4.1Core body temperature
o 4.2Blood glucose
o 4.3Plasma ionized calcium
o 4.4Blood partial pressure of oxygen and carbon dioxide
o 4.5Blood oxygen content
o 4.6Arterial blood pressure
o 4.7Extracellular sodium concentration
o 4.8Extracellular potassium concentration
o 4.9Volume of body water
o 4.10Extracellular fluid pH
5Homeostatic breakdown
6Chronic disease compensation and decompensation
7Examples from technology
8Biosphere
9Predictive
10Other fields
o 10.1Risk
o 10.2Stress
11See also
12Foot note
13References
14Further reading
 15External links

Etymology[edit]
The word homeostasis (/homiostess/[9][10]) uses combining forms of homeo- and -stasis, New
Latin from Greek: homoios, "similar" and stasis, "standing still", yielding the idea of
"staying the same".

History[edit]
The conceptual origins of homeostasis reach back to the ancient Greek concepts of balance,
harmony, equilibrium, and steady-state, all of them fundamental attributes of life and health.[11] Thus,
the philosopher Empedocles (495-435 BC) postulated that all matter consisted of elements and
qualities that were in dynamic opposition or alliance to one another, and that balance or harmony
was a necessary condition for the survival of organisms. Following these hypotheses, Hippocrates
(460-375 BC) compared health to the harmonious balance of the elements, and illness and disease
to the systematic disharmony of these elements.[11][12]
Nearly 150 years ago, the French physiologist Claude Bernard published his seminal work, stating
that the maintenance of the internal environment, or milieu intrieur, surrounding the body's cells,
was essential for the life of the organism.[13] In 1929, Walter B. Cannon published an extrapolation
from Bernard's 1865 work naming his theory "homeostasis".[11][13][14] Cannon postulated that
homeostasis was a process of synchronized adjustments in the internal environment resulting in the
maintenance of specific physiological variables within defined parameters; and that these precise
parameters included blood pressure, temperature, pH, and others; all with clearly defined "normal"
ranges. Cannon further posited that threats to homeostasis might originate from the external
environment (e.g., temperature extremes, traumatic injury) or the internal environment (e.g., pain,
infection), and could be physical or psychological, as in emotional distress.[13] Cannon's work outlined
that maintenance of this internal physical and psychological balance, homeostasis, demands an
internal network of communication, with sensors capable of identifying deviations from the
acceptable ranges and effectors to return those deviations back within acceptable limits. Cannon
identified these negative feedback systems and emphasized that, regardless of the nature of the
threat to homeostasis, the response he mapped within the body would be the same.

Overview[edit]
The metabolic processes of all organisms can only take place in very specific physical and chemical
environments. The conditions vary with each organism, and with whether the chemical processes
take place inside the cell or in the fluids bathing the cells in multicellular creatures. The best known
homeostats in human and other mammalian bodies are regulators that keep the composition of the
extracellular fluids (or the "internal environment") constant, especially with regard to
the temperature, pH, osmolality, and the concentrations of Na+, K+, Ca2+, glucose and CO2 and O2.
However, a great many other homeostats, encompassing many aspects of human physiology,
control other entities in the body.
Circadian variation in body temperature, ranging from about 37.5 C from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and falling to
about 36.4 C from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m.

An example of a basal body temperature chart in an adult woman. Day 1 is the first day after the last menstrual
period. The rise in temperature between days 14 and 18 is indicative of ovulation. Temperature was taken
orally with a regular fever thermometer. Temperature reading is very sensitive to breaks in the regular sleep-
rhythm (e.g. "sleeping in" on day 25 ).

If an entity is homeostatically controlled it does not imply that its value is necessarily absolutely
steady in health. Core body temperature is, for instance, regulated by a homeostat with temperature
sensors in, amongst others, the hypothalamus of the brain.[15] However, the set point of the regulator
is regularly reset. For instance, core body temperature in humans varies during the course of the
day (i.e. has a circadian rhythm), with the lowest temperatures occurring at night, and the highest in
the afternoons (see diagram on the right). The temperature regulator's set point is readjusted in adult
women at the start of the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle (see the diagram on the right,
below).[16][17] The temperature regulator's set point is reset during infections to produce a fever.[15][18][19]
Homeostasis does not govern every activity in the body.[20][21] For instance the signal (be it
via neurons or hormones) from the sensor to the effector is, of necessity, highly variable in order to
convey information about the direction and magnitude of the error detected by the
sensor.[22][23][24] Similarly the effectors response needs to be highly adjustable to reverse the error in
fact it should be very nearly in proportion (but in the opposite direction) to the error that is
threatening the internal environment.[7][8] For instance, the arterial blood pressure in mammals is
homeostatically controlled, and measured by stretch receptors in the walls of the aortic
arch and carotid sinuses at beginnings of the internal carotid arteries.[15] The sensors send messages
via sensory nerves to the medulla oblongata of the brain indicating whether the blood pressure has
fallen or risen, and by how much. The medulla oblongata then distributes messages along motor or
efferent nerves belonging to the autonomic nervous system to a wide variety of effector organs,
whose activity is consequently changed to reverse the error in the blood pressure. One of the
effector organs is the heart whose rate is stimulated to rise (tachycardia) when the arterial blood
pressure falls, or to slow down (bradycardia) when the pressure rises above set point.[15] Thus the
heart rate (for which there is no sensor in the body) is not homeostatically controlled, but is one of
effector responses to errors in the arterial blood pressure. Another example is the rate of sweating.
This is one of the effectors in the homeostatic control of body temperature, and therefore highly
variable in rough proportion to the heat load that threatens to destabilize the bodys core
temperature, for which there is a sensor in the hypothalamus of the brain.
Apart from the entities that are homeostatically controlled in the internal environment of the body,
and the mechanisms that are responsible for this regulation, there are variables that are neither
homeostatically controlled nor involved in the operation of homeostats. The blood urea concentration
is an example. Mammals do not have "urea sensors". Instead the concentration of urea is
determined by a dynamic equilibrium, in much the same way that the water level in a river at any
particular point along its course is determined. The level of a river is simply dependent on the rate at
which water flows into a particular section and how fast it flows away from there. It therefore varies
with the rainfall in the catchment area and obstructions or otherwise to the flow down stream there
is no energy consuming regulation. The blood urea concentration is comparable to the water level
in a natural river. It is manufactured by the liver from the amino groups of the amino
acids of proteins that are being degraded in this organ. It is then excreted by the kidneys which
simply pass most of the urea in the glomerular filtrate on into the urine without active resorption or
excretion by the renal tubules (a relatively small proportion of the urea in the tubules diffuses
passively back into the blood as its concentration in the tubules rises when water, without urea, is
removed from the tubular fluid). A high protein diet therefore produces high blood urea
concentrations, and a protein-poor diet produced low blood plasma urea concentrations, without any
physiological attempt to correct or mitigate these fluctuations in the level of urea in the extracellular
fluids.[25][26]

Controlled systems[edit]
Core body temperature[edit]

The arterial and deep vein blood supply to the human arm. The superficial (subcutaneous) veins are not
shown. The deep veins are wrapped round the arteries, and the consequent counter-current flow allows the
hand to be cooled down considerably without loss of body heat, which is short-circuited by the counter current
flow.

Mammals regulate their core temperatures, using hypothalamic temperature sensors in thei