“Don’t make waves,” is a common saying to have someone not disturb the status quo of a particular situation. In the human body, there are places where you want waves to be made. Let’s look at waves with are necessary for life.
The human body contains many amazingly different types of cells that carry on many unique functions. These cells are being studied to reveal the roles that they have in the body. Among some of the most interesting of these cells are those that control the rhythm of the movements needed within the body. The best examples of this are the heart cells and the cells of the digestive system. Let’s take a quick look at the rhythm makers of our bodies.
In order for the heart to work efficiently, the muscle cells must operate in a coordinated fashion from the top to the bottom. To make this happen, the heart contains special cells that serve as the pacemaker for the rest of the muscles. These specialized rhythm keepers are located in the right atrium and are called the Sinoatrial Node or S-A Node. These cells initiate an electrical impulse that causes a contraction of the muscle cells surrounding them. This triggers an impulse that travels down other conductive cells into an area between the chambers of the heart called the Artir-Ventricular Node or A-V Node. The muscle contraction then occurs in a very fluid manner in the heart, allowing the heart to push the blood through it into the body very effectively. This has to continue throughout our entire lives if we are to stay alive. The waves made in our heart are unique and effective at solving the problem of moving fluids through the body.
Doctors have tried for years to match the pumping ability of the heart without much success. Getting the blood to flow around the body is not a real problem, but getting it around the body with the right pressure is. In addition, the artificial pumps have been seen to damage the cells in the blood that the heart is to pump. So, for now, the heart that God created is still the best thing going.
Another group of cells that is very important for “making waves” is a newly discovered group of cells in the human digestive system. These waves in the digestive system are very important for moving food through the tube-like structure that is our digestive system. When our stomach “growls” and “moves,” we can feel the waves that result from these rhythm-producing cells.
Scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, have pinpointed this unique group of star-shaped cells in the human gut that produces the normally gentle waves of muscle contractions called “persistalsis.” Persistalsis is the rhythmic contractions of gut muscles that move food along inside the digestive system, from our esophagus to the large intestine. When we have no food in our digestive tract, then we hear air moving around, which is the growl heard. These cells have been named the “interstitial cells of Cajal.”
This tiny group of cells determines how our digestive system knows at what pace to contract in order to move our food at the proper rate. If our food moves too fast, then we do not digest and absorb the nutrients out of it. If it moves too slowly, we remove too many products and water from the food, and it decreases the efficiency of digestion and absorption. In the stomach, the contractions occur at the rate of three per minute. The small intestine has 12 contractions per minute to move our food through at the proper rate.
Sometimes in our lives, it is a very good thing to “make waves.” From this information, we can see that when God designs something, it works with amazing complexity and ingenuity.
