Endocrinology of fat, metabolism, and appetite

Abstract

An organism's ability to interact with a changing external environment while preserving its own integrity is a critical requirement for life. French scientist Claude Bernard first suggested this concept of homeostasis in the nineteenth century in his studies on the maintenance of stability in the milieu intérieur. American physiologist Walter Cannon first coined the term homeostasis (derived from the Greek words for "same" and "steady") in the 1930s. He used it to describe "the coordinated physiological processes which maintain most of the steady-states in the organism" and realized that such processes "are so complex and so peculiar to living beings-involving, as they may, the brain and nerves, the heart, lungs, kidneys and spleen, all working cooperatively-that I have suggested a special designation of these states, homeostasis." © 2005 Humana Press Inc.