Your integumentary system; it's all over you... it's your skin!  Well, your skin and the other things that are attached to your skin: hair, nails, eyelashes, sweat glands, that sort of thing.  Your skin is actually considered an organ in it's own right.  Not only that, it's the largest organ of the human body.  The average human has about 6.2 pounds of skin.  Stretched out there's about 2 1/2 yards of the stuff.

"Integumentary" comes out of a Latin word for "covering," and that's essentially what the integumentary system does.  It covers your body to protect it from disease, dehydration, and the elements.  For disease prevention, the skin forms a barrier against invaders, typically little microbes.  And your skin doesn't just sit there, oh no.  It's also proactive against those microbes, if it is clean and healthy.  Your skin produces a peptide called hBD-2 that pokes holes in microbial cell walls.  Dehydration is taken care of thanks to the fact that your skin is waterproof.  Water doesn't get in, but more importantly, water doesn't get out either.

The system also helps regulate body heat.  When it's hot, you sweat and the evaporating sweat carries away heat from your body.  When it's cold, you retain heat by constricting blood flow to the skin - to keep heat from leaking out so quickly.  When you're cold, you also get goose bumps.  In harrier creatures, this would help trap heat close to the body by making the hair stand up.  In relatively hairless humans, it's usually a signal to crank up the thermostat.

Meet your Spleen:  Make a loose fist with your left hand.  Now put it midway up the left side of your abdomen.  This is both the size and general location of your spleen, which acts as one of your body's primary blood filters.

Here's how it works.  Blood enters the spleen from an artery that branches right off the aorta (the artery that comes directly out of your heart).  The spleen has all these various cavities designed to hold the blood - the "red pulp" - and the areas called "white pulp," which hold those important disease fighting elements like white blood cells.

While blood is sitting there in your spleen, it's checked over for microbial infections.  If infections are found, they're ambushed and the alarm goes out to the rest of the immune system to be on the lookout.  In case you've ever wondered where old blood cells go to die, the spleen's the place.  There, the hemoglobin (the stuff that carries the oxygen) is broken down into iron (which is recycled) and bilirubin, a pigment that's filtered out by the liver.  The spleen also traps old platelets and white blood cells.  It's a very busy place, as you can tell, with lots of comings and going.

The spleen is an important organ, but you can live without one.  This is good news because the spleen is nicely situated to be poked by a broken rib, causing massive hemorrhaging (remember, it's filled with blood all the time).  In a case like this, taking the spleen out is often safer than keeping it in.  but don't think that a spleenless life is the same as a spleenful life.  Uh-uh.  People without spleens are susceptible to sepsis - bacterial infections of the blood.  So, be good to your spleen and keep your body detoxed so that it never feels overworked or under appreciated.  Be good to your spleen and it will be good to you.

Your Lymphatic system.  The aforementioned spleen is an integral part of the lymphatic system, which performs two very important functions.  It keeps your blood from leaking out of your circulatory system, and it keeps your body from keeling over from infection.  It's a funny name (from the Latin lympha, meaning "river water"), but don't laugh, it's better than being bloodless and infected.

So, how the heck does blood get out of your circulatory system?  Good question.  Aside from traumatic events like cuts, punctures and animal bites, blood naturally leaks out of your capillaries, those teensy blood vessels that allow your body's cells to exchange oxygen and nutrients with the bloodstream.  Most of it goes right back into the bloodstream, but there's a small percentage of plasma and other material that doesn't make the return trip.  It's not so much, but it can add up.  If it's not drained, it can lead to edema (a swelling in places you don't want swollen), which leads to tissue damage, which leads to death, which leads to you missing every important appointment you have next week.

This wayward plasma drains into an extensive network of lymphatic capillaries that drain into larger lymphatics and eventually all the collected lymph (as this blood plasma is now called) is delivered back into the bloodstream through a connection in your left and right subclavian veins, which are located below your neck on either side.

Unlike your blood which moves through your body thanks to pressure provided by your heart, the lymph is carried along by minute muscle contractions.  If you're very still and think about it, maybe you can feel those little muscles contracting.

Remember the second lymphatic function - disease defense!  Here's how it works...  Besides the aforementioned lymphatic passageways, you've got a few other lymphatic organs working overtime to help coordinate your body's blood-borne defenses (which you can think of as your own personal SWAT team).  On your team you've got B and T cells, which are know as "lymphocytes," a kind of mamby-pamby name for a couple of tough guys who ferociously track down and kill any little organism in your body that is not actually part of you.  The lymphocyte-developing organs include bone marrow (where B and T cells are created) and the thymus (where T cells mature).

Your lymphatic system also features lymph nodes, which are bean shaped glands strategically located along the system.   These are the body's equivalent of a border checkpoint.  Lymph moving along the system collects there and is checked for alien material.  If any is found, it is "detained," at which point an alarm goes off and lymphocytes are released into your bloodstream to track down any additional offenders.

Your endocrine system.  You have hormones.  Just what are hormones anyway?  Simply put, they are chemical messengers that are produced by your body to get other parts of the body to do things.  You'll find out what in a minute.  The vast majority of these hormones are produced and secreted by glands associated with the endocrine system.

Your endocrine gland works fairly simply.  Say it's time your body needs something - have a growth spurt, release an egg, or cause your body to run real fast because a large hairy man is chasing you with a chainsaw.  To prime your body for such activities, the appropriate endocrine gland is activated.  Your bloodstream dutifully carries the hormone along until it reaches a cell that "reads" the hormone's message.  Before you know it, you've outgrown your pants, you're ovulating, or you're running as fast as your little feet with carry you.

Just about every system and cell in your body relies on hormones, their instructions, and the endocrine glands that produce them can be found everywhere from your groin to your brain.  Some of the more famous glands are the pituitary (it's hormones regulated human growth), the pancreas (which produces insulin), the adrenal glands (which prime the body for action and produce adrenaline), and the testes and ovaries which both produce testosterone and estrogen (as well as other hormones) in varying amounts depending on your sex.

So, there you have it.  All of these organs are hard at work, every minute - day and night.  This very minute they are hard at work, keeping you warm, taking out the garbage, and protecting you from invasion.  Calcium Bentonite Clay is your endocrine system's best ally.  It takes a huge load off of the typical work day.  It assists your entire system in detoxification.  Your body can easily become overtaxed during its workday.  Living Clay is the relief pitcher that comes in and cleans up when an overload occurs.

Use Calcium Bentonite Clay on a daily basis to keep your body clean, detoxed and operating at its peak.  Cleanliness is next to healthiness and in turn, longevity.