For this journey, you will be miniaturized and injected into a vein of a host. Throughout the journey, you will be
traveling in the bloodstream. Your instructions are to record changes in blood composition as you float along and to
form some conclusions as to why they are occurring (that is, which hormone is being released).
Bobbing gently along in the slowly moving blood, you realize that there is a sugary taste to your environment;
however, the sweetness begins to decrease quite rapidly. Because the glucose levels of the blood have just
decreased, obviously ___1__has been released by the ____________ so that the cells can take up glucose.
A short while later you notice that the depth of the blood in the vein in which you are traveling has dropped
substantially. To remedy this potentially serious situation, the 3______ will have to release more
_4_______.so the kidney tubules will reabsorb more water. Within a few minutes, the blood becomes much
deeper; you wonder if the body is psychic as well as wise.
As you circulate past the bones, you notice charged particles shooting everywhere out of the bone matrix and
jumping into the blood. You conclude that the ____5_- glands have just released PTH because the
_6______ levels have increased in the blood. As you continue to move in the bloodstream, the blood suddenly
becomes sticky sweet, indicating that your host must be nervous about something. Obviously, his ____7____ has
released ____8_____ to cause this sudden increase in blood glucose.
Sometime later, you become conscious of a humming activity around you, and you sense that the cells are very busy.
Your host's 9_levels appear to be sufficient because his cells are certainly not sluggish in their metabolic
activities. You record this observation and prepare to end this journey.
ent