so I've already discussed some things that are going to affect bone growth but let's focus on
three we'll start with minerals and the main mineral when you're talking about bone growth
is calcium your mother tells you to drink your milk there's calcium in the milk that's gonna
make your bones stronger and that's true calcium really does play a role in terms of the integrity
of your bones but there's other minerals that will play a role phosphorus to a lesser degree
and even smaller degree magnesium manganese fluoride these will play a role in terms of
the efficiency of the secretion of extracellular matrix as well as just the overall hardening of
bone but calcium is really the big one bone is the main storage area for calcium so this is
not only going to affect the skeletal system but all other organ systems that need calcium
in order to function so muscle contraction needs calcium in order for your GI to work efficiently
calcium needs to be regulated vitamins are going to play a big role as well vitamin C will play a
big role in terms of synthesis of collagen so you need to have the proper amounts of vitamin
C in order for collagen to be structurally what you need it to be to allow for that flexibility
of bone and then vitamin D is going to be a play a big role as well so in our discussions of the
integumentary system in terms of the epidermis remember that that vitamin precursor is in the
skin which is going to affect eventually the kidney so that last by-product or the active
form of vitamin D calcitriol is going to be formed by the kidneys now that's going to
play a role in terms of whether you need to have calcium released or not so as we know it's going
to be stored in the bone so that plays a big role there all right hormones are really where
we're gonna spend the most of our time talking about factors that are affecting bone growth
and there's two main hormones that I want to discuss and then we'll talk a little bit about
growth hormones at the end so calcitonin this is going to be released by the thyroid and and your
thyroid gland is gonna be located right here in your neck you can feel your Adam's apple or
your thyroid cartilage kind of right below it is where your thyroid gland is this is going to
release calcitonin and this is important in terms of increasing osteoblast activity so osteoblasts
or bone secretion okay so think about that think of the implications in terms of this hormone if
your bones are weakened if you're having issues in terms of osteoblasts activity you want that
calcitonin level to go up now conversely your parathyroid hormones are going to do the opposite
they're going to increase osteoclast activity so the bone breaking down and that seems like
a bad thing but if you need calcium to help in terms of making sure everything's moving
smoothly in terms of your GI then that's a natural process the issue is if parathyroid
hormones are kind of activated in terms of over activation that can play a big role so recall
that your parathyroids are going to actually be posterior or on the back of their thyroid glands
estrogen and testosterone are going to play a role in terms of osteoblasts secretion as
we discussed we were talking about osteoporosis estrogen production slows in women a little
bit more quickly than what's happening with males with older age so that can
play a role in terms of the integrity of the bone and then lastly human growth hormone or
HGH which is going to be secreted by the pituitary gland is going to play a role in
terms of the bone development so earlier on in life so if there's an overproduction of
human growth hormone that can play a role in terms of gigantism so if you individuals that
are larger or taller as well as in terms of width and then if there's issues in
terms of under production of HGH this can play a role in terms of pituitary dwarfism