Posted by I made my STEAM project about osteoporosis because I enjoyed learning about the disease. The woman in the beginning is drinking milk, but she hasn’t been having enough calcium as seen by the Ca++ tanks on the second page. This causes the osteoclasts to break down more bone than they’re supposed to. This leads the personified osteoblast at the end of the comic to be surprised that they’ll be unable to keep up with the osteoclasts’ activity.
Bethany’s comic on Osteoporosis is a fantastic visual representation of the going on that happens for osteoporosis to set in inside the body. The comic is very clean and has an informative quality in the images. In her comic a woman is unable to get her daily calcium which causes the osteoclasts to start breaking down the bones in her wrist. After a few weeks the damage has been done causing the osteoblasts to have to work extra or the woman’s wrist will become frail. This comic makes it easier to imagine the way that osteocytes interact when one or the other isn’t receiving the right amount of hormones to interact with the bones in the body. Not enough CA++ activity in the woman’s body causes the osteoclasts to break down the calcium in the bones which causes an increase of PTH or parathyroid hormones. The more CA++ in the body the less PTH is in the body which lowers osteoclast activity. This hormone regulation is important for our body as bones help structure our body and keep us moving. If our body were to break down from too much osteoclast activity than we would develop osteoporosis and unable to regain the same bone density back. This makes us much more fragile than normal. At this stage though it seems like this will still be able to recover and have healthy bones so long as the woman in the comic were to consume the daily needed amount of CA++ for osteoblast activity.