Objective 69: Asses how water excess and dehydration affect kidney function

This seemed like a very easy objective when I started this blog, but after searching for the answer I realized that I couldn't really pinpoint the exact answer I was looking for. I started off searcing the internet, but it just ended up giving me a bunch of crazy answers that had nothing to do with this objective. So much for trying to find something to reinforce my understanding. After my unsuccessful search on the internet, I referred back to the handy textbook and found just what I was looking for in Chapter 25 page 873. What was I thinking trying to go somewhere else? haha. What I learned from the urinary chapter is that the kidney is the key organ to water homeostasis. The kidneys are able to retain or eliminate water, to regulate total body water it's concentration. When the body is dehydrated, there is extracellular fluid loss and insensible water loss for whatever reason. Dehydration causes water to be lost from ECF and inadequate blood volume to maintain normal circulation. When the body has excess water, the ECF osmolality drops and ADH release is inhibited. Then less water is reabsorbed and excess water is flused from the body in urine. This excess water causes the ECF fluid to be diluted and can leads to severe metabolic disturbances.