The Body’s Fleeting Workers

Inside your body there is a large and amazing family of chemical workers who, although they usually last less than a minute, make life possible. There are so many different kinds of these chemicals, called prostaglandins, that science is just beginning to learn how important they are to life.

Prostaglandins are made by just about every tissue in your body. They are made by tissue cells from stored fatty acids. When triggered, fatty acids swarm out of the cell walls and are quickly changed into the necessary prostaglandin. Prostaglandins are involved in regulating reproduction, breathing and circulation, among other things.

Prostaglandins made by the cells lining our blood vessels relax the muscles around them so that more blood can flow through them. And blood platelets also produce another prostaglandin; when triggered, it enables the blood to clot and seal wounds. In the lungs, prostaglandins regulate the openings of air passages. They help protect the inside of your stomach. It is because aspirin inhibits prostaglandin production that it helps headaches and can cause stomach problems in some people. Prostaglandins have been implicated in the swollen, painful joints caused by arthritis.

The human body is literally a symphony of thousands of carefully designed systems, each one playing in harmony with the others and all of them working together. This fact alone leaves no justification for the claim that we are designed by genetic accidents.

1 Corinthians 12:18
“But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.”

Prayer:
Lord, I thank You that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I understand that it is because of sin that sometimes our systems do not work as You designed them. According to Your will, grant me healing in those cases, but let me always be aware of Your love and presence in my life. Amen.

Ref: Shodell, Michael. 1983. “The prostaglandin connection.” Science 83. p. 78. Photo: Scanning electron micrograph of blood cells. From left to right: human erythrocyte, activated thrombocyte (platelet), leukocyte.(PD)