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    Kidney Structure and Function

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    ormatt
    Blood enters the kidney through the renal artery and is filtered by nephrons in the cortex. Each nephron contains a Bowman's capsule enclosing a glomerulus. Small molecules are filtered out of capillaries into the capsule. The fluid then passes through the renal tubule where useful substances like water, salts and glucose are reabsorbed back into the blood. The remaining fluid, urine, travels through the ureter to the bladder and is eventually expelled from the body.

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    Kidney Structure and Function

    Uploaded by

    ormatt
    250 views4 pages
    Blood enters the kidney through the renal artery and is filtered by nephrons in the cortex. Each nephron contains a Bowman's capsule enclosing a glomerulus. Small molecules are filtered out of capillaries into the capsule. The fluid then passes through the renal tubule where useful substances like water, salts and glucose are reabsorbed back into the blood. The remaining fluid, urine, travels through the ureter to the bladder and is eventually expelled from the body.

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    Kidney Structure and Function[1]

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    Blood enters the kidney through the renal artery and is filtered by nephrons in the cortex. Each nephron contains a Bowman's capsule enclosing a glomerulus. Small molecules are filtered out of capillaries into the capsule. The fluid then passes through the renal tubule where useful substances like water, salts and glucose are reabsorbed back into the blood. The remaining fluid, urine, travels through the ureter to the bladder and is eventually expelled from the body.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    250 views4 pages

    Kidney Structure and Function

    Uploaded by

    ormatt
    Blood enters the kidney through the renal artery and is filtered by nephrons in the cortex. Each nephron contains a Bowman's capsule enclosing a glomerulus. Small molecules are filtered out of capillaries into the capsule. The fluid then passes through the renal tubule where useful substances like water, salts and glucose are reabsorbed back into the blood. The remaining fluid, urine, travels through the ureter to the bladder and is eventually expelled from the body.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    At a glance
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    The key takeaways are that the kidney filters blood and produces urine, it has an outer cortex and inner medulla, and nephrons are the functional units that filter blood and regulate water and electrolyte balance.

    The main components of a nephron are the Bowman's capsule which encloses the glomerulus, and the renal tubule which the filtered fluid passes through.

    Ultrafiltration is the process where small molecules are filtered out of blood in the glomerulus into the Bowman's capsule. Reabsorption is the process where useful substances like water and glucose are absorbed back into the bloodstream from the renal tubule.

    Kidney Structure and Function

    Blood enters the kidney through the renal artery is filtered by the
    kidney and leaves through the renal vein.

    Urine leaves through the ureter and is collected in the bladder

    The outer zone of the kidney is called the cortex and the inner zone
    is called the medulla

    If you then use a microscope and look at the cortex you begin to see
    lots of structures called nephrons. There are about 750,000 of
    them in each kidney.
    A Nephron

    At one end is a cup-like structure called the Bowman's capsule. It


    encloses a knot of capillaries called the glomerulus. These capillaries
    are leaky and small molecules get filtered out and end up inside the
    Bowman's capsule. This process is called ultrafiltration.

    If nothing else happens then the materials, such as water and urea,
    will end up going all the way through the nephron, down the ureter,
    through the bladder and out of the body.

    However, sometimes the body needs to grab back chemicals such as


    water and glucose which are still useful. This happens when they
    move out of the fluid in the nephron back into the capillary network
    that twists around the nephron.

    This process is called reabsorption. Reabsorption means that the


    useful chemicals are taken back into the blood out of the nephron.
    They do not end up in the urine and are not lost by the body.
    Supply the missing words in the following paragraph:

    Blood is taken to the kidney in the ________ artery, which


    divides up into many arterioles. The arterioles enter the_______ of
    the kidney and supply thousands of glomeruli. In each glomerulus,
    ________ forces plasma minus its________ out of the capillaries,
    and it collects in the _________This liquid passes down
    the________ where __________, ___________and _________
    are reabsorbed into the blood. The remaining liquid, called
    _________. passes down the ____________and collects in
    the___________ before being expelled from the body.

    Bladder Cortex Renal Proteins Glucose Water Renal Tubule


    Ureter Blood Pressure Bowman’ Capsule Salts Urine

    In hot weather the urine becomes

    (a) more concentrated and lighter in colour;

    (b) more concentrated and darker in colour

    (c) less concentrated and lighter in colour

    (d) 1ess concentrated and darker in colour.

    Which of the following substances would you not normally expect to


    find in a sample of urine?

    (a) uric acid, (b) ammonia, (c) glucose, (d) sodium chloride, (e) urea.
    Answers
    The missing words are (A) renal, (B) cortex, (C) blood pressure, (D) proteins, (E) Bowman's capsule
    (or renal capsule), (F) renal tubule, (G) glucose, (H) salts, (I) water, (J) urine,

    (K) ureter, (L) bladder.

    4 (b) In hot weather, urine becomes more concentrated and darker in colour.

    5 (c) You would not normally expect to find glucose in a urine sample.

    The missing words are (A) renal, (B) cortex, (C) blood pressure, (D) proteins, (E) Bowman's capsule
    (or renal capsule), (F) renal tubule, (G) glucose, (H) salts, (I) water, (J) urine,

    (K) ureter, (L) bladder.

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