The kidneys - an introduction
The kidneys are two, they have the form of two large beans positioned in the sides of the back. When they are in good conditions, they are more or less as big as hands clenched into fists.
The kidneys are used not only to produce urine.
The kidneys: what they do
The kidneys are the street cleaners of the body and shall eliminate waste substances that accumulate in the blood and which are produced by the metabolism of the food we eat: for example, creatinine, nitrogen, uric acid, sodium, potassium, acid and alkali, … The kidneys filter the blood and reabsorb the various substances, keeping the balance right.
As an example, think of the water if we drink too much of the kidney eliminates excesses, but if you drink too little kidney reduces the production of urine.
In addition to filtering the blood and purify it, the kidneys:
- make active (ie capable of operating ) vitamin D, essential for bone health because it regulates the absorption of calcium and phosphorus ;
- produce erythropoietin, a hormone that is used to produce and mature red blood cells ( RBCs if you fall, you have a situation of anemia) ;
- regulate the production of renin, a substance that does raise or lower the blood pressure ( those with kidney disease often has a high blood pressure),
The fabric is made of renal nephrons, the functional units composed by the glomerulus and tubule. The glomerulus filters blood but is not able to recognize the substances to be eliminated and those to maintain; tubule instead substances are reabsorbed as needed. The water and waste products that remain form the urine which is collected in the renal calices and passes into the bladder to be eliminated.
Each nephron works in a continuous loop filtering many times during the day all our blood and cleaning it thoroughly.
When the kidney is the nephron some ill happens to die. The healthy nephrons take his place and work for two allowing you to maintain balance in the body. Unfortunately, in the long run these nephrons workers toil, age prematurely and die. So even if you urinate “normally”, it can not be all right. The symptoms, feelings of discomfort that signal the presence of kidney disease are often very late and may occur when renal function is reduced to less than 20 % of the normal and may be too late to correct the situation fully.
In kidney disease the prevention is critical!