Posted by For my steam project, I decided to tackle the objective: “explain how bone development is hormonally regulated.” And with this, I decided to delve into Grave’s Disease and its affects on bone development and Growth.
In my research, Grave’s Disease is an autoimmune disorder that affects the thyroid gland. It causes the gland to produce too much thyroid hormone, resulting in hyperthyroidism. (Xie et al., 2022) Many of the symptoms include heat intolerance, irritability, heart palpitations, weight loss or no weight gain, hyperactivity, sleep disorder and in more severe cases neck swelling, eye bulging. (Xie et all., 2022.)
Grave’s Disease and thyroid disease in adolescence has an effect on their growth in the puberty stages (Xie et al., 2022) which can be linked to bone development and growth. (Hadjidakis et al., 2006) Hyperthyroidism accelerates bone turnover and the overall net loss of bone (Gorka et al., 2013). Due to receptors for thyroid hormones present in the bone, they may interact directly with osteoclasts and osteoblasts (Gorka et al., 2013) which are directly responsible for bone remodeling and our development, and most importantly our growth.
Growth plates respond to our hormones as our body develops, especially in the puberty stages where they’re at their highest.
This is important because in cases like Grave’s Disease when there is an influx of the parathyroid hormone, which typically is meant to respond to low calcium levels. The parathyroid hormone is what signals the production of osteoclasts which break down bone (Gorka et al., 2013). And high net loss of bone can lead to brittleness, stunted growth, and osteoporosis.
On the topic itself, I have a lot of personal interest in this as my younger brother has Grave’s Disease, and I wanted to learn more about it. To explore the topic I made three short poems. The first one from the perspective of a family member and briefly covering some of the symptoms, as well as the grief of hearing a diagnosis. The second poem from the perspective of the bones and discussing the effects of the parathyroid hormone and bone decay, and the third from the perspective of the subject themself, detailing how they feel and covering more of the general symptoms. I wanted to paint a more pained picture of it and create something saddening, but humanizing. The disease itself with a name like “Grave’s Disease”, despite only being named after the person who discovered it can come off as terrifying, and morbidly depressing. So I wanted to capture that feeling best I could. A lot of it was capturing the biological, and tying my own grief and feelings together into something I hope carried through.
REFERENCES
HADJIDAKIS, D.J. and ANDROULAKIS, I.I. (2006), Bone Remodeling. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1092: 385-396. https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1365.035
Gorka, Jagoda, Taylor-Gjevre, Regina M., Arnason, Terra, Metabolic and Clinical Consequences of Hyperthyroidism on Bone Density, International Journal of Endocrinology, 2013, 638727, 11 pages, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/638727
Xie H, Chen D, Zhang J, Yang R, Gu W and Wang X (2022) Characteristics of Graves’ disease in children and adolescents in Nanjing: A retrospective investigation study. Front. Public Health 10:993733. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.993733