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Asked by 454sysb37 to Carmen, Daniel, Laura, Noel, Steph on 11 Mar 2015. This question was also asked by Maria Altarriba.
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Carmen Denman answered on 11 Mar 2015:
Hi again,
mucus and cilia protect inside our body, but the skin the toughest component of all. It is made up of multiple layers and is protective against most things, to get inside ‘germs’ would have to penetrate our skin or find another way in. Even if they do penetrate our skin has immune cells in waiting to deal with invasion. I reckon if we didn’t have skin we wouldn’t survive long at all, it is a huge component of our immune system in that it is a barrier for all our important organs etc…!
Carmen
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Noel Carter answered on 11 Mar 2015:
The skin is also covered in lots of friendly bacteria that also help protect us from dangerous bacteria. The technical term for these bacteria are commensals. We have them on us and in us and if you count up all of the cells on and in you by number you are about 95% bacteria!!! If we had no skin maybe we would have a thicker layer of bacteria!
Comments
454sysb37 commented on :
So the conclusion would be that without skin we wouldn’t survive so long as germs would attack are body tissues and organs, isn’t it?
454sysb37 commented on :
Or maybe we would had a thick layer of bacteria
Carmen commented on :
Hi again,
cool thought- instead of skin we’d have a thick biofilm of bacteria coating us! However, I think skin is so vital to our survival I believe the answer is no, you cannot live without skin.
Our skin is an organ in and of itself- it works with the endocrine system, respiratory system, basically all systems need skin to protect, cool down, heat, and hold everything together, in a sense. Like, without skin your blood would be everywhere and there would be no structure. Without blood, you won’t get oxygen anywhere in the body to keep it alive, due to no transportation of O2 from the blood. Just some additional thoughts!