The Body Odd blog

The Body Odd blog has some interesting posts about body and health related topics.
The one that caught my searching eye was (Does your nose grow with age?) that negated the belief that ears and noses continued to grow as we get older. I had always heard that as fact. The truth of the matter is that the collagen and elastin in our skin breaks down and succumbs to gravity.
So take heart when our civilization finally becomes space bound and leaves this planet, our skin will stay young, taut, and supple long into old age. However, that will be at the price of our bone density, and after a certain amount of time we will never be able to walk again. Eh, a decent trade off to stay young.
That makes me think of people in extended comas. In the movies, people who wake from extended comas never go through physical therapy to recover from their atrophied muscles. But in reality extensive measures must be taken to prevent permanent deformity (drugs, passive exercise, and passive supported standing can help). Christoper Reeves was trying to prevent his muscles from permanently atrophying in hopes of regaining muscular control. I know he wasn't in a coma, but he was suffering from the same inactive body problems. Rest easy big guy.