Do Individual Cells and Our Body as a Whole Attempt to Maintain an Optimal Working Environment?

Just as you clean your apartment or house and determine what kind of stuff is found within your living area, so too will our cells clean and regulate the contents in their intracellular fluid. This allows each cell to maintain an optimal operating environment. Scientists often use the term homeostasis to describe the efforts associated with the maintenance of this optimal environment. Furthermore, just as it is the responsibility of each cell to maintain its own ideal internal environment; at the same time many of our organs work in concert to regulate the environment within our body as a whole. These organs include the kidneys, lungs, skin, and liver. Many of our most basic functions, such as breathing, sweating, urinating, digesting, and the pumping of our heart, are actually functions dedicated to homeostasis (Table 2.2). Therefore, homeostasis is the housekeeping efforts of all our cells working individually as well as together to provide an environment conducive to optimal
function.