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Diagram showing the basic physiologic mechanisms of the kidney. The kidney's ability to perform many of its functions depends on the three fundamental functions of filtration, reabsorption, and secretion, whose sum is called renal clearance or renal excretion. That is:
The kidneys excrete a variety of waste products produced by metabolism into the urine. The microscopic structural and functional unit of the kidney is the nephron. It processes the blood supplied to it via filtration, reabsorption, secretion and excretion; the consequence of those processes is the production of urine.
Diagram outlining movement of ions in nephron, with the collecting ducts on the right. The collecting duct system is the final component of the kidney to influence the body's electrolyte and fluid balance. In humans, the system accounts for 4–5% of the kidney's reabsorption of sodium and 5% of the kidney's reabsorption of water. At times of ...
The anatomy of the human urinary system differs between males and females at the level of the urinary bladder. In males, the urethra begins at the internal urethral orifice in the trigone of the bladder, continues through the external urethral orifice, and then becomes the prostatic, membranous, bulbar, and penile urethra.
Fig.1) Schematic diagram of the nephron (yellow), relevant circulation (red/blue), and the four methods of altering the filtrate. The nephron is the functional unit of the kidney. [3] This means that each separate nephron is where the main work of the kidney is performed. A nephron is made of two parts:
Mammalian kidneys are susceptible to ischemic injury because mammals lack a renal-portal system, and as a result, vascular vasoconstriction in the glomeruli can lead to decreased blood supply to the entire kidney. The kidneys are susceptible to toxic injury, since toxins are reabsorbed in the tubules along with most of the filtered substances. [47]
The kidneys are a pair of organs of the excretory system in vertebrates, which maintain the balance of water and electrolytes in the body (osmoregulation), filter the blood, remove metabolic waste products, and, in many vertebrates, also produce hormones (in particular, renin) and maintain blood pressure.
Reabsorption allows many useful solutes (primarily glucose and amino acids), salts and water that have passed through Bowman's capsule, to return to the circulation. These solutes are reabsorbed isotonically , in that the osmotic potential of the fluid leaving the proximal convoluted tubule is the same as that of the initial glomerular filtrate.