Our skeletons are composed of hard tissue that provides us with a sound infrastructure allowing for upright posture, complex movements, and amazing dexterity. While many look upon their skeletons as hard structures that hold us and give shape to our bodies, most don’t realize that this is one of the several ways our skeletons serve us.
For a fun analogy to assist this illustration, consider this: our skeletons are not like a small store selling one kind of widget — they are more like a mini-mall offering us multiple goods and services. Your amazing skeleton offers:
- A type of “Parking” to support your softer tissues and attachment points, and in turn, to assist skeletal muscles in movement.
- “Security” for the internal organs as mechanical protection.
- A form of “Supermarket” where the body can buy “groceries” like vital minerals that play essential roles in cardiovascular and overall health. This includes calcium (97.9%), magnesium (50%), sodium (35%), and phosphorus (85%), and also some “speciality foods” like citrate and carbonate. These alkalies attach to the minerals in bone and supply for the essential maintenance of precise blood pH balance.
- A type of “hardware store” within which the bone marrow gives blood cells for moving nutrients and oxygen, platelets for fixing leaks and patching holes, and “batteries” that reserve energy in the form of fatty acids.
- A “locker room” for keeping hazardous substances out of circulation.
- A “courier service” within which a certain type of hormones send messages to the tissues about glucose control, energy metabolism, body mineral balance, and body fat.
6 Secrets about your skeleton