• Question: How does our body grow

    Asked by mccro123 to Kimberley, Drew, Amy, Julia, Sara on 20 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by mollyhenry, melissamartin123.
    • Photo: Sara Imari Walker

      Sara Imari Walker answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Hi mccro123, mollyhenry, and melissa! We grow by making new cells through cellular division. Each of our cells carries the entire library of our genetic information in its DNA. So every cell knows how to read from this master guide book. As we age our cells use this to figure out when to divide, when to specialize etc. We don’t know all the details yet, biologists are working hard on that one! But the basic idea is that we grow by intaking food that helps us make more cells. Interestingly when you build up muscle that is not through cell division, but actually through expansion of existing cells – muscle cells can get pretty big! So, there’s lots of interesting stuff going on as we grow!

    • Photo: Amy MacQueen

      Amy MacQueen answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Hey guys…if you think about it how does anything grow? Take a housing estate for example – it can get bigger because people build more houses or because the houses themselves get bigger and take up more space. This is just like what Sara has said…our cells divide to produce more cells by a process called mitosis and certain cells can also grow bigger in size (like the ones in muscle!). Both of these cause our body to grow! 🙂

      Uncontrolled growth is what happens in cancer (which is why you usually get a lump – a tumour). This is caused by cells growing and dividing when and where they shouldn’t!

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