Fluid, Electrolytes, Acid-Base Balance

• The composition of the blood depends on three major factors: diet, metabolism, and urine output.
• Too much of everything is as bad as too little.
• Right and proper intake of fluids and foods makes the circulation of our body balance and regular.
• The kidney has four major roles to play which help keep the blood composition relatively constant: excreting nitrogen containing wastes, maintaining water balance of the blood, maintaining electrolyte balance of blood, and ensuring proper blood pH.
• A healthy young adult water accounts probably half or more of body weight, with women having relatively less muscles and large amount of body fat, resulting in a higher water content.
• Water is the universal body solvent within which all solutes are dissolved.
• Water occupies three main locations within the body referred to as fluid compartments: intracellular fluid (ICF) and extracellular fluid (ECF).
• Water balance exists when total water intake equals total water output.
• Water serves as a food and a nutrient, universal solvent, biological solvent, and plays various other functions.
• Water helps create saliva, regulate body temperature, protect tissues, spinal cord, and joints, maximize physical performance, improve blood oxygen circulation, boost energy, improve mood, keep skin bright, and prevent overall dehydration.
• Total water intake varies from individual to individual, and can be gained either from drinking water or from eating moist foods and from the by-product of the oxidative metabolism of nutrients, "water of metabolism".
• Fruits are an excellent source of water, with watermelon being 90% water, oranges, grapefruit, and melons like cantaloupe and honeydew also being strong contenders.
• Vegetables, though not as full of water as fruit, can also provide a nutrient-rich water source, with celery, cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, and Romaine lettuce being good examples.
• The primary regulator of water intake is thirst, which derives from the effect of osmotic pressure of extracellular fluids on a thirst center in the hypothalamus.
• Water enters the body only through the mouth, but can be lost by a variety of routes or ways, such as sensible perspiration (urine, feces, and sweat), insensible perspiration (evaporation of water from the skin and from the lungs during breathing).
• Water loss occurs primarily through the renal system, with the distal convoluted tubules and collecting ducts of the nephrons regulating water output.
• The primary means of regulating water output is urine production, as our kidneys work hard to eliminate/filter out all the unnecessary water in our system to maintain balance.
• Hyperphosphatemia is abnormally increased levels of phosphates in the blood.
• The mechanism that controls positively charged ions secondarily regulate negatively charged ions.
• Concentrations of sodium, potassium, and calcium ions in body fluids are particularly important.
• Blood pH is the acidity or alkalinity of the blood.
• About two pounds of calcium in your body are bound up in bone, which provides hardness to the bone.
• Hypophosphatemia is abnormally low phosphate blood levels.
• Once in the lungs, the reactions reverse direction, and CO2 is regenerated from bicarbonate to be exhaled as metabolic waste.
• Bicarbonate is transported in the blood.
• Calcium helps to stabilize cell membranes and is essential for the release of neurotransmitters from neurons and of hormones from endocrine glands.
• Carbon dioxide is converted into bicarbonate in the cytoplasm of red blood cells through the action of an enzyme called carbonic anhydrase.
• To ensure that you have enough electrolytes, stay hydrated and eat foods rich in electrolytes, such as spinach, turkey, potatoes, beans, avocados, oranges, soybeans (edamame), strawberries and bananas.
• Acidosis is a condition where the pH of arterial blood drops below 7.35.
• Alkalosis is a condition where the pH of arterial blood rises above 7.45.
• Electrolytes are lost through perspiration, feces, and urine, with quantities lost varying with temperature and physical exercise.
• Parathyroid hormone and calcitonin regulate calcium ions.
• Calcium ions, Ca2+, are necessary for muscle contraction, enzyme activity, and blood coagulation.
• Calcium is absorbed through the intestines under the influence of activated vitamin D.
• A little more than one-half of blood calcium is bound to proteins, leaving the rest in its ionized form.
• Hypocalcemia is abnormally low calcium blood levels.
• Phosphate is found in phospholipids, such as those that make up the cell membrane, and in ATP, nucleotides, and buffers.
• Hypercalcemia is abnormally high calcium blood levels.
• The adrenal cortex secretes aldosterone to regulate sodium and potassium ions.
• Teeth also have a high concentration of calcium within them.