Lecture Homeostasis Homeostasis Homeostasis can be defined as staying the same or maintaining a dynamic equilibrium involving environmental forces that might change the internal environment of an organism except for the organism's internal control mechanisms that act against the change.
Homeostasis involves negative feedback mechanisms.
When blood sugar levels drop in between eating the pancreas secretes a second hormone, glucagon which causes adipose tissue to break down fat and the liver to convert glycogen to glucose. Thus blood sugar is in homeostasis due to the negative feedback provided by the two hormones. Body temperature can be ectothermic where temperature originates with the external environment or endothermic where temperature originates within the body of the organism. Humans are endothermic. A fever breaks when the set point is changed back to the original temperature and the pyrogens are broken down.