Skin
Skin is the largest organ in your body.
Skin grows faster
than any other organ. We keep renewing our skin our entire
lives and it is important to understand how it works.
The
biggest job of skin is to protect your body.
It is a tough, elastic, flexible, and waterproof coating
that helps to protect your other organs and body parts from
various things as germs, heat, cold, and sunlight.
Skin is made up of two layers.
The outer layer, of which you can see, is called the epidermis,
the epidermis keeps producing new cells that push to the top
of the skins surface and the layer below is called the dermis
and is a fibrous tissue.
What you will find below the dermis
is subcutaneous fat. Nerve cells in the skin make it sensitive
to touch, pressure, and heat.
There are two main kinds of human skin;
• Non-hairy skin (glabrous skin)
Non hairy skin (glabrous skin) is found on the palms of the
hands and soles of the feet and is categorized by a thick
epidermis with fingerprints (dermatoglyphics).
• Hairy-skin
Hairy skin varies dependant on what body area, for example,
the scalp versus the leg. On the fingers and toes, nails are
created from the epidermis.
Oil glands (sebaceous glands)
are found attached to hair follicles.
The sweat glands are
located in the dermis with channel ducts going through the
epidermis to the skins surface.
However there are specialized
sweat glands called apocrine glands which are to be found
in specific parts of the body, such as armpits and the groin.
These apocrine glands only develop after children have reached
puberty.
Skin is one of the most complex organs in the body, besides
having specialized sweat glands; there are nerves, blood vessels
and muscles which are embedded in the skin.
The outer layer
of skin is continually growing and the dead skin cells on
the surface flake off - normally without you seeing them.
This skin regenerating process normally takes about 52-75
days.
Some interesting facts on skin:
The average adult has 2 sq meters which weighs over 3.2 kg
and has approximately 300 million skin cells.
On average each half a square inch of skin contains:
10 hairs
15 sebaceous glands
100 sweat glands
1 meter of tiny blood vessels
The skin is at its thickest on the palms of the hands and
the soles of the feet, this varies between 1.2mm to 4.7mm.
Facial skin is approximately 0.12mm thick and on the general
body area is about 0.6mm.
The thinnest layer of skin is on the lips and around the
eyes.
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