Objective 56: Examine differences in metabolic and respiratory acidosis and alkalosis

Here is another objective that I figured would be so complicated to understand, but I'm very glad to say that wasn't the case at all. I referred to chapter 25 page 886-887 and it provided some very good information on these topics. The chart on page 886 (included below) was also a great help in understanding metabolic and respiratory acidosis and alkalosis, because the chart also explains what the causes and consequences are of each acid-base imbalance. Hey, a little extra information never hurts if it helps you better understand the concept, right? So this is what I gathered from the textbook about what each one was.

Respiratory acidosis: (The most common cause of acid-base imbalance)
Respiratory acidosis is characterized by falling pH and rising partial pressure of carbon dioxide. It occurs most often when a person breathes shallow or when gas exchange is hampered by diseases

Respiratory alkalosis:
Respiratory alkalosis occurs when carbon dioxide is eliminated from the body faster than it is produced, causing the blood to become more alkaline. This often occurs from stress or pain.

Metabolic acidosis: (Second most common cause of acid-base imbalance)
Metabolic acidosis occurs when their is a low blood pH and low HCO3- levels. Typical causes of this are too much alcohol (Hello hangover!) and excessive loss of HCO3-.

Metabolic alkalosis:
Metabolic alkalosis occurs when their is a rise in blood pH and a rise in HCO3- levels. Typical causes of this are vomiting of the acidic contents of the stomach and an intake of excess base (Hold off on those Tums please!).

Objective 67: Contrast volume and electrolyte content in inter- and extracellular fluid compartments

With the help of some excellent diagrams, this objective was a breeze. Did I stress that diagrams are extremely helpful in learning a majority of these concepts? I obtained these photos and slides from the PowerPoint lecture outlines available for our class and included them. Although, I did refer to my textbook for some more information and that helped out a great deal. The first photo that I've included can be found in chapter 25 page 868 and the fourth photo can be found in chapter 25 page 869. The first photo breaks down the major fluid compartments of the body, and it is plain to see that intracellular fluid makes up the majority of it. That makes sense, cells need fluids to perform their functions. Extracellular fluid is composed of two things, interstitial fluid and plasma. ICF is 25 L of our bodies total water, while ECF is only 15 L of our bodies total water (40 L all together). The last chart is very helpful because it shows the total solute concentration that each electrolyte occupies in ICF, ECF, and blood plasma.

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.

Objective 65: State the importance of juxtaglomerular cells in secretion of renin

There wasn't too much information on this topic, but I still relied on the textbook and class lectures to understand this objective. I really did stress myself out on this objective, but it really wasn't as hard as I made it seem. I referred to chapter 15 page 539 and chapter 25 page 845 to help me figure this information out. This is what I concluded from the information I read. There are juxtaglomerular cells are enlarged, smooth muscle cells with secretory granules containing renin. These cells become excited when blood pressure falls, and the response is to release renin in the blood. Renin initiates the release of aldosterone to help blood pressure return to normal. There wasn't too much to go on for this topic, but these passages that I did locate aided me in understanding the concept.

Objective 63 & 66: Urinary system

Objective 63: Describe the structure and function of renal corpuscles and renal tubules
Objective 66: Identify the three basic tasks performed by the nephrons and collecting ducts, and indicate where each task occurs


Anything that has to do with the nephrons is definately not my department at all. When you take an overview of the whole structure, its way more than any normal person can swallow. I never knew that such a small section of our body, microscopic small since there are about one million nephrons per kidney, could play such an important factor in our body and urine secretion. It's common sense that our bodies have to secrete waste, but I never sat and wondered how our body actually accomplished this until now. The textbooks and lectures gave a great deal of information on these topics that were not only informative, but very confusing. So I set out to find something that would better summarize this tangled mess of nephrons that our body has. I found this video on Youtube that was absolutely amazing in describing not only the structure and functions of the renal corpuscles and renal tubules, but it also gave great information about the functions of the nephrons and collecting ducts. Anything diagram that has animation showing me how the process works is helpful for me.

So basically, the nephrons functions are filtration, secretion, and reabsorption. The collecting ducts are responsible for collecting all materials that has not returned to the blood through tubular membranes. This material will exit the body as urine. Filtration occurs in the renal corpuscle. The glomerulus filters protein and cells from the blood, and then all other blood components go into the Bowman's capsule. Secretion and reabsorbtion occurs in the U-shaped tubule. The semipermeable membranes surrounding the tubule allow certain particles to reabsorbed back into the blood or from the blood into the tubule.

Objective 55: Trace the path of blood flow through the kidneys

This diagram found on page 840 of our textbook was very helpful in learning the path of the blood flow through the kidneys. It is a very simple diagram, but it isn't confusing and it is very easy to remember. I am able to learn the concept better if there happens to be a diagram included, instead of just reading the words from the text book so I was happy when I came across this. It shows the path of blood as journeys through one of the kidney's lobes and it continues the cycle until it gets to the last lobe. I also was able to locate a YouTube video of a girl showing and explaining the path of the blood flow through the kidneys on a model in her class. This is helpful because I not only can read the chart, but I can hear someone explaining it to me while showing me on a model. This helped my visual learning. For some reason I thought that the blood flow through the kidneys would have been a more complicated one, but I'm relieved to find out that it is relatively simple. That helps me out tremendously.

Objective 62: Describe external and internal gross renal system anatomy

When I was trying to learn the external and internal anatomy of the renal system, I mainly referred to my textbook and slide outlines because they provided me with many visual diagrams. The slide outlines for the chapter 24 provided some basic information that described the different characteristics and internal layers of the organs. Since I am a visual learner, the diagrams were amazing in helping me understand the placement of the organs in the body. Our lab dissection was where the light bulb really clicked on for me though. Dissection 8 was the Urinary System of the Cat and I was able to see first hand how the organs were actually connected and place in relation to one another. Its one thing to see it in the diagram, but it seemed to make a whole lot more sense when I was actually dissecting the cat and seeing the organs for myself. This dissection instructed me to dissect into the kidney (the first picture is the actual kidney I dissected) and the bladder. I'm a hands-on person as well, so being able to see the cortex and medulla of the kidney and also the internal sphincter of the bladder really helped me remember them. I kind of dreaded the dissections at first because I was also afraid that I was going to cut the cat wrong, but I am now glad that I had the opportunity to do the dissection in lab.

Objective 51: Describe kidney function

When I was trying to understand the function of the kidneys, I referred to these two slides from chapter 24 lecture power point because they were to the point and provided the important functions of the kidneys. These slides that were provided for the lecture summarized the functions of the kidneys and it was easier to understand all of the functions when they are short and simple. I read and reread the section on the kidneys, but with all the information in the book it made it hard for me to pinpoint the exact functions that the kidneys were responsible for. I am grateful for the slides because they aided in my understanding of the basic information.

Another source of information that I came across in my quest for understanding kidney function was from National Kidney Foundation: How your kidneys work. This passage from the article is also to the point, but it provides a little more information about the functions of the kidneys that was helpful to me and provided me with a little bit of an "ah ha" spark. The kidneys are a very important part of our body system, and also an organ that I didn't realize played such a vital vole in our bodies homeostasis. I never realized how important the kidneys functions were to our body until my mother was diagnosed with a rare disease called Wegener's Granulomatosis. Although Wegener's disease is known as an autoimmune disease, this disease majorly effects the upper respiratory tract, lungs and kidneys. My mother was seriously ill for almost a year, but she thankfully caught the disease in time and is currently in remission. If the disease was left untreated, Glomerulonephritis may develop and the kidneys won't be able to filter out wastes and excess fluids from the body properly. This causes accumulation of wastes products in the blood stream and cause kidney failure. Until my mother was diagnoised with this disease, I always took forgranted the importance the kidneys play in our body. Now I have a better understanding of the function of this organ.

The kidneys perform several important jobs including the removal of chemical and mineral impurities from the blood, balancing acid in the blood, and controlling body fluids. These delicate processes take place when blood flows through the kidneys. The kidneys also help to control your body’s production of red blood cells, regulate blood pressure, and help keep bones strong and healthy. Each kidney has about a million tiny nephrons. Each nephron has a group of tiny blood vessels called a glomerulus. The glomerulus is the small structure in charge of filtering and cleaning the blood as it flows through the kidney. The rate at which the glomerulus filters the blood is called the glomerular filtration rate or “GFR”.
The kidneys filter almost 200 quarts of blood every day and make approximately two quarts of urine as the waste product. When the kidneys don't work like they should, products in the blood which are supposed to be removed, like the blood urea nitrogen (BUN), and creatinine (Cr) stay in the blood and can be easily measured with a blood test. Other products that are supposed to stay in the blood, like proteins, end up in the urine and can be measured with a urine test.



Objective 52: Detail the kidney involvement in blood pressure and blood volume regulation

Trying to pinpoint the kidneys involvement in blood pressure and blood volume proved to be very difficult for me, but this chart that I included from page 849 briefly and accurately describes all of the process that effect blood pressure and blood volume. Whenever I have to figure out lenghty process that have multiple steps, it is very hard for me to grasp. Just reading the textbook confuses me because it seems like there are hormones and mechanisms involved in something that sounds so uncomplicated as blood pressure. I never realized how much our body has to do just to regulate the blood pressure and volume of our bodies, and if just one step of this process failed we could be in a world of hurt. Blood pressure is something that I need to pay close attention to because my family has a history of high blood pressure, and if something goes wrong with one of the hormones or organs that are involved it could seriously throw things off. I still have a hard time understanding the entire process of blood pressure and blood volume regulation, but this chart and portion of the textbook are very informative in showing how the body works to regulate the two. I personally think the chart helped clear things up better than the passage of the textbook because it shows things step by step and doesn't involve excess information to throw you off.